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THE PRIMITIVE RACES 
OF MANKIND 





THE 
PRIMITIVE RACES 
OF MANKIND com, 


A STUDY IN ETHNOLOGY ( , JAN 21 1927, 
<<) SS 
LOGICAL SEW 





BY 
MAX “SCHMIDT 


DR. JUR. ET PHIL. 
PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN 


TRANSLATED BY 
ALEXANDER K. DALLAS 


LECTURER IN GERMAN IN HERIOT-WATT COLLEGE 





GEORGE G. HARRAP & CO. LTD. 
LONDON GAL CU LIA SYDNEY 


Published 1926 
by GEoRGE G. Harrap & Co. LTD. 
39-41 Parker Street, Kingsway, London, W.C. 2 


Printed in Great Britain at THE BALLANTYNE PRESS by 
SPOTTISWOODE, BALLANTYNE & Co. LTD. 
Colchester, London & Eton 


PREFACE 


T is now a considerable time since a number of universities 
J evotece ethnology as a separate subject of study, but till 
now there has been no real text-book of this science. The main 
reason for this is that ethnology came into existence from the most 
varied sources, with the result that very diverse currents have 
influenced its development. The lack of a definite system was an 
additional obstacle to any attempt to gather into systematic order 
all the material of ethnology, and that is, after all, the main task 
of a manual. A definite plan had first to be drawn up, and then 
the separate parts of this plan had to be filled in as uniformly as 
possible with the material available. The great difficulty here was 
that the separate parts of ethnology have till now been very un- 
equally worked. In the case of some parts of the system, chiefly 
in certain parts of special ethnology, fundamental and compre- 
hensive preliminary work has already been done. For example, 
Ankermann in his work Der gegenwartige Stand der Ethnographte 
der Siidhdlfte Africas, in the Archiv ftir Anthropologie (iv, 1906), 
has given such an excellent account of the civilization of the 
Bantu negroes that a manual of ethnology can do nothing but 
follow what he has done in that part of its subject. With equal 
excellence the American tribes have been dealt with by Krickeberg 
in his Illustrierte Vélkerkunde, edited by Buschan. The greatest 
gaps were those left in general ethnology, and in large sections of 
the material economy. In the section dealing with social economy 
I have fallen back on my own Grundriss der ethnologischen Volks- 
wirthschaftslehre, and from it I have taken over into this text-book 
the arrangement of the material. 
The purpose of the present book is to bring to the knowledge, 
not only of students, but also of a wider circle of readers, the main 
problems of ethnology, and to describe and illustrate the most 


S 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


important relevant facts. I trust the book may help to promote 
an interest in ethnology, and to correct mistaken views of the 
manner of life of the races outside Europe, so that that portion of 
mankind may have their due share of attention. This manual, 
both in its form and its contents, will find its justification in the 
degree in which it attains this purpose. 

MAX SCHMIDT 


BERLIN 
1924 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 


INTRODUCTION 
THE MEANING AND TASK OF ETHNOLOGY 
THE HIstorRY OF ETHNOLOGY 


THE RELATION OF ETHNOLOGY TO THE OTHER SCIENCES 


Anthropology, p. 21. Archeology, p. 23. Geography, p. 23. 

- Geology, ~. 24. Mineralogy, ~. 24. Botany and Zoology, 
p. 24. Physics, Chemistry, and Technology, p. 24. Medicine, 
p. 25. History, especially the History of Civilization, p. 26. 
Jurisprudence, p. 27. Political Economy, ~. 27. Socio- 
logy, p. 28. Psychology, especially Racial, . 28. Philo- 
logy, ~. 29. History of Art, p. 30. Science of Religion, 
p. 30. 


THE LITERATURE OF ETHNOLOGY 


THE METHOD OF ETHNOLOGY 


The Ethnological Material, #. 39. The Supply of Ethnological 
Material, ~. 42. The Determination of Ethnological Facts 
from the Raw Material, ~. 46. The Working-up of Ethno- 
logical Facts, p. 47. 


THE ETHNOLOGICAL SYSTEM 


feetdeed hdl 
GENERAL OR SYSTEMATIC ETHNOLOGY 


SECTION I 


VOLUNTARY HUMAN ACTIVITIES IN RELATION 
TO THE HUMAN INDIVIDUAL 


I, THE NATURE OF HUMAN ACTIVITIES 


II. THE SATISFACTION OF WANTS AS THE AIM OF 
HUMAN ACTIVITIES 


III. ACTIVITIES IMMEDIATELY DIRECTED TOWARD PER- 
SONAL SATISFACTION 


PAGE 


15 
15 
18 


20 


31 
34 


49 


51 


54 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


CHAPTER 


PERSONAL CONSUMPTION 


The Taking of Food, ~. 61. Treatment of the Body (Care 
of the Body, Clothing, Physical Training, Physical Relaxation, 
Sick-treatment, Treatment of the Body after Death), p. 66. 
Sexual Satisfaction, p. 80. Play, p. 80. Religious Cere- 
monies, p. 83. 


SECTION II 


VOLUNTARY HUMAN ACTIVITIES AS AFFECTED 


BY NATURAL ENVIRONMENT 


I. THE PROBLEM OF MAN’S RELATION TO NATURE 


Climate, . 95. Varying Forms of the Surface of the Earth, 
p. 96. Animal and Vegetable Worlds, p. 98. Influence of 
the Variability of Nature on the Human Manifestations of 
Life, p. 100. 


Il. THE MATERIAL ECONOMY 


Meaning and Classification of Material Economy, ~. 102. The 
Technical Process of Production of Commodities, p. 102. The 
Things thus produced, Commodities, p. 104. Primitive Pro- 
duction (Raw Materials from the Vegetable World, from the 
Animal World, and from Inanimate Nature), #.106. Transfor- 
mation of Material, or Industrial Production (Fire as a Means of 
Production, The Various Kinds of Transformation of Material, 
The Use of Mechanical Forces, The Use of Chemical Forces), 
p. 122. Transport of Commodities, p. 138. Preservation of 
Commodities, ~, 142. 


III. VOLUNTARY HUMAN ACTIVITIES IN RELATION TO 


OTHER MEN 


THE SoctaL LIMITATIONS OF THE SATISFACTION OF HuMAN 


WANTS 


THE ORGANIZATION OF ECONOMIC INTERCOURSE 


The Nature of Economic Intercourse, . 148. Means of Inter- 
course (Means of Communication, Mutual Understanding, 


. Human Speech, Visible Means, News Service, Place and Time, 


Numbers, Weight and Measurement, Money, Hostile Inter- 
course, Weapons, the Principles of Organization, Communal 
Economy, Rules of Intercourse, Various Forms of Organization 
of Communal Economy, Differences of Rank, Differences of 
Calling), p. 151. 


THE SocraL Economic Process 


Production of Commodities (Commodities, Prerequisites of 
Production, Forms of Production), p.174. Conveyance of Com- 
modities (Varieties of Conveyance), p.178. Hostile Conveyance 


PAGE 


61 


89 


I02 


144 


144 
148 


174 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
of Commodities, p. 179. Economic External Conveyance, 
p. 179. Peaceful Communal Conveyance, p. 182. Economic 
Internal Conveyance, p. 182. 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF LABOUR AND COMMODITIES AMONG 
MANKIND 


THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOCIAL ECONOMY 


IV. VOLUNTARY HUMAN ACTIVITIES IN RELATION TO 
THE INTELLECTUAL ENVIRONMENT 


THE LIMITATIONS OF VOLUNTARY ACTIVITIES BY THE IN- 
TELLECTUAL ENVIRONMENT 


THE INTELLECTUAL CIVILIZATION OF MANKIND 
Custom, p. 192. Art, p. 193. Religion, p. 199. 


PART II 


SPECIAL OR DESCRIPTIVE ETHNOLOGY 
(ETHNOGRAPHY) 


1. INTRODUCTORY 
Il, THE PEOPLES OF THE EARTH 


THE PEOPLES OF AMERICA 


The Tribes of North America 


1. The Arctic Region, p. 210. 2. Canadian Collectors and 
Hunters, p. 211. 3. The Atlantic Region, p. 211. 4. The 
Prairie Tribes, p. 214. 5. The North-west Americans, p. 215. 
6. The Tribes of Oregon and California, p. 217. 7. The Tribes 
of the Pueblo Region, p.217. 8. The South-west Tribes, p. 220. 


The Tribes of Central America 


1. The Civilization of Ancient Mexico, p.222. 2. Tribes under 
the Influence of Maya Civilization, p. 231. 3. The most 
Southerly Tribes of Central America, p. 233. 


The Tribes of South America 


1. The Tribes that have no Tillage (Fuegians, Patagonians, 
Pampas Indians, Araucans, Chacos, Guato Indians, Indian 
Tribes without Tillage in the Northern Forest Area of South 
America), p. 234. 2. The Tillage Tribes in the Northern 
Forest Areas, p. 245. 3. The Ancient Inhabitants of the 
Antilles and Bahamas, p. 254. 4. The Civilized Peoples of 
the Andean Area (Columbian Civilization, Peruvian Civilization), 
p. 255. 


PAGE 


184 
186 


189 


189 


190 


203 
206 


206 


209 


221 


233 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 
THE TRIBES OF THE SOUTH SEAS a 


1. The Australians, p. 266. 2. The Tasmanians, ~. 269. 
3. The Tribes of Melanesia, p. 270. 4. The Tribes of Micro- 
nesia, p. 276. 5. The Tribes of Polynesia, p. 278. 


THE TRIBES OF AFRICA 287 
The Racial Elements in the Population of Africa 287 
African Antiquities 289 
The Native Groups of Africa 290 


1. The Fair-skinned South Africans and the Pygmies (Bushmen, 
Hottentots, Pygmies), p. 290. 2. The Bantu Tribes, p. 296. 
3. The Peoples of the Western Sudan, ~. 312. 4. The Peoples 
of the Eastern Sudan, p. 321. 5. The Peoples of the North-east 
(the Inhabitants of Egypt, Abyssinia, the East Horn of Africa), 
p. .324.° 6. Ihe Sahara Tribes, p. 329. -7:, The. Littoral 
Tribes of North Africa, p. 330. 8. The Population of 
Madagascar, p. 332. 


THE PEOPLES OF EURASIA 333 


The Peoples in the Asiatic-European Zone 333 
The Mongolian Race, p. 333. The Mediterranean or Indo- 
Atlantic Race, p. 334. The Great Religious Communities of 
the Asiatic-European Civilization, p. 335. 


Eurasian Peoples outside the Asiatic-European Zone 342 


1. The Malayan Tribes, p. 342. 2. The Dravidians, p. 344. 
3. The Negritos and Indo-Australians, p. 345. 4. Pale- 
Asiatics, p. 345. 


SUBJECT INDEX 347 
INDEX OF GEOGRAPHICAL AND TRIBAL NAMES 355 
MAPS 
PEOPLES OF NorTH AMERICA 212 
PEOPLES OF CENTRAL AMERICA 222 
PEOPLES OF SOUTH AMERICA 240 
PEOPLES OF THE SOUTH SEAS 266 
PEOPLES OF AFRICA 290 
PEOPLES OF EURASIA 334 


10 


ILLUSTRATIONS 
PLATES 


PLATE 


Ls 


TUKANO INDIAN WITH LARGE CIGAR. TUYUKA INDIAN TAKING 
SNUFF 


. ARTIFICIAL BATHING-PLACE OF THE PARESSI INDIANS 


MAKONDA WOMAN WITH DEFORMATION OF Lip. Masart YOUTH 
WITH EAR ORNAMENT 


‘CONSTRICTION OF THE ARM MUSCLES IN A YEKUANA INDIAN. 


SCAR-TATTOOING ON A FEMALE NEGRO 


. KAYAPO INDIAN WITH FEATHERS PASTED ON HIS Bopy. PIRoO 


INDIAN WITH PAINTED PONCHO 


ANCIENT PERUVIAN HEADDRESS WITH FEATHER MOSAIC AND 
GOLD ORNAMENTATION. ANCIENT PERUVIAN PONCHO WITH 
RAY-FISH PATTERN 


SIB-HOUSE OF THE PARESSI INDIANS 
PILE-VILLAGE OF THE MOANAS (ADMIRALTY ISLANDS) 
HOUSE-INTERIOR OF THE MAKUNA INDIANS 


MOSQUITO-NET OF THE GUATO INDIANS. SLEEPING-MAT OF 
THE GUATO INDIANS 


SCRAPING INSTRUMENTS OF COWHORN USED BY THE TOGO 
NEGROES. SHAVING THE HEAD AMONG SUDAN NEGROES 


. ANCIENT PERUVIAN MUMMIES, FROM CHANCAY AND PACHA- 


CAMAC 


. PARESSI INDIANS PLAYING HEAD-BALL 


AUSTRALIAN RELIGIOUS CEREMONY 


. ARTIFICIAL PLANTATION-MOUND OF THE GUATO INDIANS. 


FLOATING GARDENS (CHINAMPAS) IN MEXICO 


. FOREST-CLEARING FOR MANIOC PLANTATION (PARESSI INDIANS) 
. FISHERMEN OF THE GAZELLE PENINSULA WITH HAND-NETS. 


FISHERMEN OF THE GAZELLE PENINSULA WITH TACKLE 
FISH-TRAP OF Rio NEGRO INDIANS 


. BLOWING-TUBE IN USE (Kava INDIANS). MELANESIAN SPEAR- 


ING FISH 


PAGE 


66 
67 


68 


69 


7O 


71 
74 


75 
76 


Fh 
78 


79 
80 


81 


96 
97 


114 
II5 


T16 
Be 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


PLATE 
20. HUNTING-SCREEN OF THE PARESSI INDIANS. SAME READY 


PAGE 


FOR USE 1 
21. PRESSING OUT THE JUICE OF THE MANIOc (KOBEUA INDIANS). 

MAKING EARTHENWARE (KOBEUA INDIANS) 124 
22. FURNACES FOR SMELTING IRON IN BANYELI, TOGOLAND. 

SMITHS OF THE BARI 125 
23. MILLING FLouR (GUINEA Coast) 130 
24. SOUTH AMERICAN BASKETRY 131 


25. AFRICAN MAT-WEAVING. GREENWICH ISLANDER AT THE LOOM 136 
26. PRINTING CoTTON MATERIALS (GOLD Coast). WOMAN DOING 


BATIK (JAVA) 137 
27. ASCENT TO A SUSPENSION BRIDGE BETWEEN TINTO AND TALE, 
AFRICA 142 
28. WAGANDA BoaT ON LAKE VICTORIA. OUTRIGGER BOAT AT 
PRINCE FREDERICK HENRY ISLAND 143 
29. SIGNAL AND DANCE DRUM OF TUKANO INDIANS. SIGNAL 
DRUM OF THE BANSSA (CAMEROONS) 146 
30. PICTORIAL WRITING OF S10UX INDIANS ON BUFFALO-HIDE 147 
31. DUELLING AMONG THE BOTOCUDO, ON THE RIO GRANDE DE 
BELLMONTE 158 
32. REPRESENTATION OF BRAVES WITH PRISONERS ON AN ANCIENT 
PERUVIAN CLAY BowL 159 
33. TAMBERMA CASTLE, TOGOLAND, WESTERN SUDAN. ROOF OF 
TAMBERMA CASTLE 160 
34. CAVE-DWELLINGS IN COLORADO. ZUNI INDIAN SETTLEMENT 161 


35. BUSHMAN DRAWING. PENCIL DRAWING BY PARESSI INDIANS, 
REPRESENTING THE AUTHOR’S ARRIVAL ON HORSEBACK IN 


THE VILLAGE 194 
36. PAINTINGS ON ANCIENT PERUVIAN TEXTILES 195 
37. Dance Masks oF TRUMAI AND MEHINAKU INDIANS (UPPER 

XINGU, CENTRAL BRAZIL) 196 
38. Woop-cARVING FROM NEw MECKLENBURG. Maori CARVING 

ON A WOODEN Box 197 
39. Maort CarvING 198 
40. BRonzE Cast FROM BENIN, NIGERIA: KING AND RETINUE 199 
41. ANCIENT MEXICAN STONE-RELIEF: THE ‘ CALENDAR STONE’ 202 


42. ANCIENT MEXICAN STONE FIGURE: THE EARTH-GODDESS, 
COATLICUE 203 


43. MasKED MEDICINE-MAN OF THE KWIKPAGMIUT (ALASKAN 
EsKIMO) 204 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PLATE 


44. 


45. 
46. 


47- 
48. 
49. 


50. 
51. 


52. 
53: 


54: 
55: 
56. 


57: 


58. 
59. 


60. 
61. 


62. 
63. 
64. 
65. 
66. 
67. 
68. 
69. 
70. 
“ae 


Mask COSTUME OF THE KWAKIUTL, WORN BY MEMBERS OF 
THE HAMETZ SECRET SOCIETY 


BONE-CARVING OF THE KWIKPAGMIUT 


DANCE BLANKET OF THE TLINKIT INDIANS. CHIEFTAIN 
FIGURES OF THE KWAKIUTL 


HERALDIC PosTsS OF THE HAIDA INDIANS 
ARAPAHO INDIAN WOMAN. SIoux INDIAN 


WooDEN DOLL (TIHU) OF THE MOKI (PUEBLO INDIANS). SHIELD 
OF THE ZUNI (PUEBLO INDIANS) WITH SYMBOLIC PAINTING 


TEMPLE-PYRAMID OF CHICHEN-ITZA. TEMPLE RUINS OF UXMAL 


PAINTED EARTHENWARE FROM CHAMAR, GUATEMALA, FUMI- 
GATING VESSEL FROM QUEEN SANTO, GUATEMALA 


TALAMANCA INDIANS 


ARAUCANS WITH Loom (SouTH AMERICA). YAGAN INDIANS 
(TIERRA DEL FUEGO) 


CHAMACOCO INDIAN WoMAN. CADIUCO INDIAN WOMAN 
GUATO INDIAN. PARESSI INDIAN 
GIRL AND Boy, PARESSI INDIANS 


FIGURE IN GOLD OF THE CHIBCHA: A RAFT. STONE FIGURE 
FROM SAN AGUSTIN, COLUMBIA 


ANCIENT PERUVIAN EARTHENWARE FROM CHIMU 


QUEENSLANDER WITH FEATHERS GUMMED ON HIS Bopy. 
WoMAN FROM NEw SouTH WALES 


Boy FROM NEW POMERANIA. MAN FROM PRINCE FREDERICK 
HENRY ISLAND 


CHIEF FROM COLLINGWOOD Bay, NEW GUINEA, IN DANCE 
DRESs. GIRL FROM COLLINGWOOD BAY 


MeEn’s House IN DALLMANNHASEN, MELANESIA 

FLUTE ORCHESTRA, BOUGAINVILLE ISLAND, MELANESIA 
PILE-DWELLING IN NEW GUINEA 

HovusE oF Fiji ISLANDERS 

HOUSE IN THE NEW HEBRIDES 

VILLAGE SCENE IN NISSAN, MELANESIA 

MAN AND WOMAN FROM Nauru ISLAND, MICRONESIA 
Maori WoMAN AND MAN 

SAMOAN CHIEF. SAMOAN GIRL 

BUSHMEN IN FRONT OF THEIR Hut. BUSHMAN 


PAGE 


205 


206 


207 
214 


215 


218 


219 


226 


227 


238 
239 
240 


241 


256 
257 


260 
261 


268 
269 
270 
271 
272 
273 
276 
277 
284 
285 
292 


13 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


PLATE PAGE 


72. OVAMBO WoMEN (SOUTH-WEST AFRICA). HERERO WOMEN 


(SOUTH-WEST AFRICA) 293 
73. KAFIR ‘ KRAAL’ 300 
74. ZULU BRAVE AND GIRL 301 
75, ANCESTRAL FIGURE OF THE BAwILI (LoANGO Coast) 304 
76. WAHUMA SULTAN (East AFRICA). HAusA WOMAN (WESTERN 

SUDAN) 305 
77, NOBLEMAN’S HousE IN ADAMAWA, WESTERN SUDAN. CAVE- 

DWELLINGS IN Las PALMAS 320 


78. MEen’s HovusE oF THE BAMUM (WESTERN SUDAN). COURT- 


YARD IN DAHOMEY 321 
79. NEWLY WED DyAk COUPLE 342 
80. CHIEF’s HouUSE IN THE PHILIPPINES. MEN’S CLUBHOUSE AT 

PADANG, SUMATRA 343 
FIG. 
1. A SHELTER OF THE GUATO INDIANS re 
2. DIAGRAMS SHOWING HOW THE ‘STEPS-AND-STAIRS’ PATTERN 

IN BASKETRY IS PRODUCED 128 
3. DIAGRAMS SHOWING HOW THE ‘STEPS-AND-STAIRS’ PATTERN 

IN BASKETRY IS PRODUCED 129 
4. THE ‘DOUBLE-THREAD’ PLAIT 132 
5. THE ‘CANE-CHAIR’ PLAIT 133 
6. COURSE OF THE THREADS IN WARP AND WEFT PATTERNS 135 
7. SCHEME TO ILLUSTRATE ‘ CLASSIFICATORY KINSHIP’ 166 
8. DIAGRAM TO SHOW THE POSITION OF THE DIAGONAL STRIPES 

IN THE RHOMB AND MEANDERING PATTERNS 195 
g. SKETCHES OF A BIRD, A MAN, AND FISHES DONE BY BAKAIRI 

INDIANS. SAND DRAWINGS By AUETO INDIANS 197 
10. TRIANGLES OF BAST, WITH PAINTED PATTERNS, WORN BY 

BAKAIRI WOMEN (UPPER XINGU, SOUTH AMERICA) 198 
11. MEXICAN PICTURE-WRITING FROM THE CODEX BOTURINI REPRE- 

SENTING THE EMIGRATION OF THE AZTECS FROM THEIR 

ORIGINAL HOME 227 


14 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES 
OF MANKIND 


INTRODUCTION 
THE MEANING AND TASK OF ETHNOLOGY 


OWN to the present day there still prevails, even among 
ethnologists themselves, much uncertainty and difference 


of opinion with regard to the nature and scope of the science. 
One of the main difficulties in the way of a clear demarcation of 
the tasks of this science is the want of a recognized nomenclature. 
The words ‘anthropology,’ ‘ethnology,’ and ‘ethnography’ are 
frequently used as if they were really synonymous. Friedrich 
Miiller, for example, uses them in this manner in his manual 
Allgemeine Ethnographie. Our first business, therefore, must be to 
determine the true meaning of these three terms. 

The word ‘anthropology’ has been used in very varied senses. 
Some writers have restricted it to the purely physical side of the 
study of mankind—that is, to what we call by the specific name 
‘physical anthropology.’ Others, again, have given the word a 
much more general meaning, understanding by it all that bears on 
the study of mankind, including ethnology. This latter meaning 
is found in the very title of the well-known work of Theodor Waitz, 
Die Anthropologie der Naturvélker, published in 1858, This usage 
has been maintained in England and in North America down to the 
present time, whereas in other countries, especially in Germany, 
‘anthropology,’ without any qualifying adjunct, is now usually 
employed in the narrower sense, and means physical anthropology. 

The word ‘ethnology,’ like the independent science that now 
bears that name, is comparatively recent. Its first public appear- 
ance was in the name of the Société d’Ethnologie at Paris in 1839. 
The word ‘ethnography’ is a little older. It appeared first at 
the end of the eighteenth century in the Danish scholar Niebuhr’s 
work Beschreibung der Vélker. From the very first these two 
names, ethnography and ethnology, were used to denote two quite 


15 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


distinct things. Ethnography was a science of classification, 
dealing with the relationships between the races of mankind, and 
about the middle of the nineteenth century it gradually came to be 
a science with the task of describing each of the various races ; 
whereas ethnology had a more comprehensive meaning, and denoted 
a more reasoned science of the races of mankind. It is thus in 
keeping with historical development if we here use the word ethno- 
graphy to denote that special or descriptive ethnology which will 
be treated in the second part of this book, so that ethnography is 
only a special part of the wider idea, ethnology.1 It should 
be added that this use of the words is not followed by certain 
French scholars. They use ethnography in the wide, comprehensive 
meaning that we here give to ethnology. This French usage is 
seen in the name of the Société d’Ethnographie de Paris, consti- 
tuted in 1859. 

Every demarcation between a separate branch of study and the 
general science that forms a natural unit is bound to be more or 
less artificial, and it is by purely practical considerations that we 
must be guided in defining in greater detail the nature and scope 
of ethnology. This is especially true in connexion with the funda- 
mental question whether the scope of this science should comprise 
all the races of mankind, or whether it should be restricted to that 
portion of mankind which is not included among historical peoples. 
For purely practical reasons it seems better to follow the two most 
outstanding ethnologists of Germany, and to exclude from our 
science that portion of mankind the study of which has already 
been taken in hand by other sciences. This means that ethnology 
is to be restricted to the study of mankind outside the circle of 
Asiatic and European civilization.2, The chief argument against 


1 Similarly Ratzel contrasts ethnology as a science of exploration with ethno- 
graphy as ‘‘descriptive ethnology.’ Others, like Heinrich Schurtz and A. H. 
Keane, drawa distinction between ethnology as “‘ comparative’ and ethnography 
as ‘descriptive.’ According to Keane, ethnography describes separate groups 
independently of each other. Waitz uses the names ‘ethnology’ and ‘ ethno- 
graphy’ in the same meaning, but Gerland, who continuedand completed Waitz’s 
great work, Die Anthropologie der Naturvélker, calls ethnology the science of the 
nature of peoples and ethnography the science of the present distribution of 
mankind, the method of their distribution, and their probable numbers. 

* According to Bastian, the centre of gravity of ethnology lies among the 
native races or peoples who have no writing. ‘‘ The museums are their docu- 
ments.’ He says that the “‘ historical peoples,” among whom he includes the 
Egyptians, Assyrians and Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, and the Germanic 
nations, only come within the scope of ethnology in as far as there are “‘ archaic 
remnants ”’ of them for which there are parallels among native races. Ratzel 


16 


INTRODUCTION 


such restriction is that the study of this portion of mankind can- 
not be detached from an intimate knowledge of the conditions of 
life of civilized peoples. But this cannot be considered a sound 
argument for including these civilized peoples in the sphere of 
ethnology. Ethnology has very close associations with all kinds 
of sciences. The ethnologist must be more or less familiar with 
them all, and it goes without saying that an intimate knowledge of 
the conditions of life among the civilized peoples of Asia and Europe 
is indispensable to ethnological study. But that is no reason why 
these should be included among the subjects of ethnological investi- 
gation. The same is to be said about what is now regarded as the 
sphere of archeological study. Here, too, ethnology must be con- 
tent to leave that field of research, so far as it concerns the civili- 
zations of Asia and Europe, to the separate science of archeology. 
On the other hand, it is legitimate to include in ethnology all that 
lies outside these civilizations and which has not yet been worked, 
at least in a systematic way, by the archeologist. Of course, an 
exact knowledge of the methods of work and of the results of 
archeology is indispensable to anyone who undertakes the study 
of archeological ethnology. 

On the other hand, while we maintain that this restriction of 
ethnology is justified, its scope must not be unduly limited. It is 
impossible to enter here into a detailed discussion of the divergent 
views that are held with regard to the proper sphere of ethnology.? 
It is a narrow view that would limit that sphere to the study of the 
intellectual life of mankind.? This would lead to a regrettable 
neglect of the economic aspect of that life. The correct point of 
view is that stated by Steinthal, the psychologist and philologist, 


maintains that ethnology should study the native and half-civilized races, because 
till now attention has been given mainly to civilized peoples. Others, including 
the more modern ethnologists, like P. W. Schmidt, Winternitz, and Schurtz, do 
not accept this limitation, and claim for ethnology the whole range of mankind. 

1 The same objection to the restriction of ethnology to the study of the life of 
people outside the zones of Asiatic and European civilization has been made by 
P. W. Schmidt. See ‘‘ Die moderne Ethnologie,” in Anthropos, vol. i (1906), 
p. 982. 

* A collection of the different opinions of the foremost ethnologists is given by 
M. Winternitz in his paper “‘ Vélkerkunde, Volkskunde und Philologie,’”’in Globus, 
vol. 78, p. 345 ff. 

3 F.g., P. W. Schmidt, ‘‘ Die moderne Ethnologie,’”’ in Globus, vol. 78, 
p. 972. Emil Schmidt in Zentralblatt fiiv Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urge- 
schichte (1897), pp. 97-102. Steinmetz, in his Ethnologische Studien zur ersten 
Entwickelung der Strafe (1894), vol. i, p. 11, says, ‘‘ Ethnology is the comparative 
study of all the social phenomena in the life of non-Aryan peoples,” but this is 
only the social side of the task of ethnology. 


B 17 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


when he says that ethnology, as contrasted with philosophy and 
history, is the science that studies the lfe of the races that have no 
history... Or, as Ratzel puts it, it is the task of ethnology “to 
study the life of mankind in all its aspects.” 2 This word ‘life’ 
best sums up all that has hitherto formed the actual basis of ethno- 
logical study. But, being a purely inductive science, ethnology — 
can only study the life of mankind so far as that life has taken an 
external form and has left traces from which it can be deciphered. — 
Therefore, it is only the manifestations of human life—z.e., human 
activities—that can be the subject of ethnological study ; and even 
these, so far as they are involuntary and conditioned only by man’s 
physical nature, belong to the sphere of physical anthropology. 

The conception of ethnology which has been indicated in the 
preceding pages may be summed up in a short definition: Ethnology 
is the study of the voluntary manifestations of human life outside 
the zones of Asiatic and European civilization.® 


THE -HISTORY OR ETHNOLOGY 


We can only speak of the history of a science when it has attained 
such a stage that it can be said actually to exist as such. It is, 
therefore, absurd to pretend, as some have done, to follow back to 
remote antiquity the history of a science so young as ethnology. 
Of course, the phenomena that now form the subject-matter of 
ethnology have long been dealt with from many other points of 
view. The ancient Chinese, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans 
included the ways of life of foreign peoples among their scientific 
studies. Excellent descriptions of foreign peoples can be found 
in writers like Herodotus, Polybius, Cesar, and Tacitus. These 
early stages of our science belong mainly to the science of geo- 
graphy, and that science still continues, in its branch of anthropo- 


1 See H. Steinthal, Philologie, Geschichte und Psychologie in th ti 
Beziehungen (Berlin, 1864), Ae 28 ff. ‘ wma hal 2h it i 

2 See Friedrich Ratzel, V dlkerkunde (Leipzig and Vienna, 1894), vol. i 

3 The literature of the subject includes the following: P. W. ane 
moderne Ethnologie,”’ in Anthropos, vol. i (1906). Bastian, Die Vorgeschichte 
dey Ethnologie (Berlin, 1881). Max Schmidt, Grundriss der ethnologischen Volks- 
ahead ieee 1920), vol.i, p. 1 ff. M. Winternitz, ‘“‘ Vélkerkunde 

olkskunde un ilologie,’”’ in Globus, vol. 78, p. ne. Bisa Yap i 4 S 
Braue et Vexpansion civilisatrice, pees Nee 

iterature: A good sketch of the history of the science is given by P. W 

Schmidt in Die moderne Vélkerkunde. Gollier and Bastian als siete 
space to it in their works quoted above. Ae See es ee 


18 


INTRODUCTION 


geography, to deal with many matters that properly belong to 
ethnology. None of these efforts, however, can be said to belong 
to the history of ethnology. 

The foundation of ethnology as an independent science goes back 
to French scholars in the beginning of the nineteenth century. 
The initial impetus came from the notable letter which the famous 
natural philosopher Edward addressed to Amedée Thierry. Along 
with his brother, Thierry had founded a new School of History, 
which was intended to study more attentively than hitherto the 
character and aptitudes of the races of mankind. The deep 
impression produced by this letter led in 1839 to the formation of 
the first distinctively ethnological society, the Société d’Ethnologie 
de Paris. Its first president was Edward, and, before many years 
had passed, it had done much to promote ethnological science by 
the publication of a number of excellent special works written by its 
members. It wasin Paris also that the first Ethnographical Museum 
was established. As early as 1842 England followed the French lead 
and founded the Ethnological Society in London; and a few years 
later the third Ethnological Society was instituted in New York. 

Thus, to begin with, it was the great colonial empires of the time 
that were impelled by their practical interest in the conditions of 
life among foreign peoples to undertake a more intensive study of 
these conditions. And it was only when Germany had joined the 
ranks of colonial powers that the need was increasingly felt in 
Germany of a better-organized study of the lives of foreign races. 
Germany had begun late to build up a colonial empire after the 
manner of other great powers, and it had great leeway to make up 
before it could reduce the handicap held by its rivals. But that 
very fact proved to be a special incentive to German scholars to 
devote themselves whole-heartedly to ethnological studies. Bastian 
was indefatigable in his exhortations to collect ethnological material 
before the levelling influence of European civilization, which was 
rapidly spreading everywhere, should make it too late to begin. 
The foundation of the Berliner Museum fiir Vélkerkunde was his 
work. Adolf Bastian and Friedrich Ratzel are the two pioneers 
of German ethnology, and it is due to the labours of these two men 
that for many years past the claim that France held the leading 
place in this field of study could no longer be made. Indeed, the 
results of German ethnological study can claim a place alongside 
those of the ethnologists of any other country. 

19 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


The attempt had already been made to bring about some co- 
ordination in the work of scholars in Germany, Austria, and German 
Switzerland, not only in the field of ethnology, but also in those of 
the sister-sciences of anthropology and archeology. It took a 
considerable time, however, before ethnology was able to assert 
itself and maintain its ground in face of the odds in favour of the - 
other two sciences. The actual union of German ethnologists took 
place on April 1, 1870, when a number of German scholars met in 
Mainz, and founded the Deutsche Gesellschaft fiir Anthropologie, 
Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, usually abbreviated to the Deutsche 
Anthropologische Gesellschaft. The publications of the Society 
are the monthly Korrespondenzblatt and the quarterly Archi fur 
Anthropologie. In immediate connexion with this society, and 
provided for in its constitution, are local associations, of which 
the most important is the Berliner Gesellschaft fiir Anthropologie, 
Ethnologie und Urgeschichte. The publication of this latter society 
is the Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie. Among the scholars who have held 
the office of president are Bastian, Karl von den Steinen, and Seler. 


THE RELATION OF ETHNOLOGY TO THE OTHER 
SCIENCES! 


There is a very close connexion between the course of develop- 
ment through which ethnology has passed and the relation in 


1 Literature : 

(a) GENERAL. Richard Andree, ‘‘ Uber den Wert der Ethnologie fir andere 
Wissenschaften,” in Korrespondenzblatt (1908), p. 66 ff. 

(b) ETHNOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY. Some sections of Johannes Ranke’s 
Der Mensch are important—e.g., in vol. i the ethnic importance of food and 
of lack of food, the effect of extreme heat and cold on the animal organism 
and on man; in vol. ii the relation between the social organism and bodily stature. 

(c) ETHNOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY. Fr. Ratzel, Anthropogeographie (1st ed., 
Stuttgart, 1882 ; 2nd ed., 1899). The same author’s vol. ii, Die geographische 
Verbreitung des Menschen (Stuttgart, 1891, 1912). Hermann Wagner’s Lehrbuch 
dev Geographie, vol.i, has an excellent chapter on this subject. 

_(d) ETHNOLOGY AND MINERALOGY, Botany, AND ZooLocy. There is a good 
bibliography in E, Friedrich’s Geographisches Jahrbuch, xxxi (1908). A. de 
Candolle S Origines des plantes cultivées (1883) is a standard book on its subject. 
H. Semler’s Die tropische Agrikultur (1897, 1903). Ed. Hahn’s Die Haustiere und 
thre Beziehungen zur Wirtschaft der Menschen. 

(ec) ETHNOLOGY AND Puysics, CHEMISTRY, AND TECHNOLOGY. Karl Weule, 
Kosmos (1921 and 1922). 

(f) ETHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE. Max Bartels, Die Medizin der Naturvélker 
(Leipzig, 1893). 

(g) ETHNOLOGY AND JURISPRUDENCE. See Post’s Einleitung in eine Natur- 
wissenschaft des Rechts (Oldenburg, 1872). See also Post’s Grundriss der ethno- 
ne Jurisprudeng (1894), and Kohler’s Zeitschrift fiir vergleichende Rechts- 


INTRODUCTION 


which it stands to other sciences. When, in the early years of last 
century, ethnology began to develop from small. beginnings and to 
attain increasing importance it was no new, unworked field in 
which the infant science began its work. What we now call the 
subject-matter of ethnology had been parcelled out among a 
number of.other sciences, the lion’s share falling to anthropology 
and geography ; and, therefore, the gradual consolidation of eth- 
nology as an independent science was accompanied by a gradual 
detachment of its special subject-matter from the realm of other 
sciences. Unfortunately, this process has not yet been completely 
carried out, and there are still portions of the field of ethnology 
which are claimed and worked by older sciences. Among these 
frontier-zones are anthropo-geography, ethnical jurisprudence, 
comparative religion, and, more recently, ethnological political 
economy, and others, to which more detailed reference will be 
made in the following pages. 

Besides being an independent science, ethnology has now come 
to be an indispensable auxiliary to a large number of other sciences, 
and, when its system and method have been perfected, it will cer- 
tainly become even more important in this respect. Being the 
science that deals with the manifestations of human life outside 
the circles of Asiatic and European civilization, ethnology has 
become indispensable to all those sciences which treat of the con- 
ditions of life within these zones, because the nature and develop- 
ment of these conditions—whether they concern jurisprudence or 
economy or religion or language—can only be understood in con- 
nexion with the conditions of life among the rest of mankind. 
A history of civilization that left out of account all the peoples 
outside Asiatic and European civilization would not satisfy our 
modern views of what such a scientific history should be. 

We have seen that the boundary line between anthropology and 


wissenschaft; also Kohler’s Lehrbuch der Rechtsphilosophie (Berlin and Leipzig, 
1917); Paul Wilutzky’s Vorgeschichte des Rechts; Max Schmidt’s Die Bedeutung 
der vergleichenden Rechtswissenschaft fir die Ethnologie (1919). 

(hk) ETHNOLOGY AND POLITICAL Economy. See my Grundriss, vol. ii, and 
Karl Biicher, Die Entstehung der Volkswirtschaft (Tibingen, 1867) and Arbeit und 
Rhythmus (Leipzig, 1902). 

({) ETHNOLOGY AND PsycHoLocy. Wilhelm Wundt, V6lkerspsychologie. 
Fritz Schultze, Psychologie der Naturvélker (1900). 

(k) ETHNOLOGY AND PHILOLOGY. Fr. Miller, Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft. 

(1) ETHNOLOGY AND ART. Ernst Grosse, Die Anfainge der Kunst (1894). 

(m) ETHNOLOGY AND RELIGION. Magazines are Jean Réville’s Revue de 
Vhistoive des religions and Albrecht Dietrich’s Archiv fiir Religionswissenschaft. 
Th. Preuss, Die geistige Kultur der Naturvolker (1914). 


21 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


ethnology is still so vague and ill-defined that even the names of 
these two sciences are frequently used as if they were interchange- 
able. At the time when the great work of Theodor Waitz, Anthro- 
pologie der Naturvélker, introduced the study of ethnology into 
Germany ethnological study in England and France had been over- 
whelmed by the steady advance of the study of anthropology. In | 
comparison with the Société d’Anthropologie de Paris, which was 
then under the leadership of Broca, the Société d’Ethnographie led 
a struggling existence; and in England the old Ethnographical 
Society, founded in 1842, was unable to hold its own with the 
sudden, rapid spread of anthropology, and had to yield place to 
the Anthropological Society, which was afterward reconstituted as 
the Anthropological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. It is 
not surprising, therefore, that when Germany and Austria took up 
the study they too felt the prevailing ascendancy of anthropology, 
and it was only slowly that ethnology regained its ground. Its 
champion was Adolf Bastian, who, along with R. Hartmann, 
founded in 1869 the Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie, and thus restored the 
balance between anthropology and ethnology. 

As we have seen, it is the task of ethnology to study the mani- . 
festations of life among a definite portion of mankind, whereas that 
of anthropology is the study of the human organism. We seem to 
have here a perfectly clear principle of division between the two. 
The study of the human organism is always a matter for anthro- 
pology, even when the races concerned lie outside the cultures of 
Asia and Europe. But there is a sphere common to the two 
sciences, first, because the manifestations of human life have their 
source in the human organism, and, secondly, because they ulti- 
mately react on the human organism. All human impulses have 
as their ultimate aim self-preservation and the preservation of the 
species. But, as we shall see later, the manifestations of human 
life are conditioned, not only by the human organism, but also by 
the milieu. Even when the human organism is the same, a change 
of milieu produces a change in the manifestations of life: and these 
in turn react on the human organism. There are thus far-reaching 
reciprocal relations between the manifestations of human life and 
the human organism, and therefore between ethnology and anthro- 
pology. The science of these reciprocal relations, for which the 
most suitable name would be ethnological anthropology, would thus 


be part both of ethnology and of anthropology. This ethnological 
22 


INTRODUCTION 


anthropology, as a special branch of ethnological study, requires to 
be further developed. Up till now practically no systematic work 
has been done in this field. 

With regard to the relation between ethnology and archeology 
—the latter including prehistoric and classical archeology—we 
have already seen that, on purely practical grounds, we include 
under ethnology that part of archeology which deals with bygone 
generations of men outside the circle of Asiatic and European 
civilization. This forms a very extensive borderland of our science, 
and the most suitable name for it is archeological ethnology, because 
purely archeological methods of research must be employed. 

This branch of ethnology has acquired great importance in con- 
nexion with America. Men like Seler, Holmes, and others have 
done so much important work in this field that we can now speak of 
the archeology of America asa special branch of ethnological science. 

A glance at past history shows that since ancient days the 
science of geography has always had a dual character. Its subject 
has always included, besides the structure of the earth, its influence 
on its human inhabitants. This second aspect, which has come to be 
called anthropo-geography, in French géographie humaine, is now 
taken over by ethnology, and is best called ethnological geography. 
The close relation which thus exists between these two lines of 
study in virtue of their subject-matter has been made even closer by 
the course of their development. Ethnology, of which till recently 
there have been very few university chairs, has found its best 
ally in geography, and the geographical publications are still the 
sole vehicles for ethnological papers intended for a wider circle of 
readers. The frequent occurrence of the double title ‘ Geography 
and Ethnology’ in magazines and books is clear evidence of the close 
connexion that exists, even outwardly, between the two sciences. 

Although the influence of the earth’s surface on the manifes- 
tations of life of the various races of mankind is of far-reaching 
importance for ethnology, especially on the economic side of human 
life, very little attention has been paid to it by ethnology. Perhaps 
this neglect is mainly due to the fact that this material has till 
now been worked up by geography. Indeed, up till quite recent 
times general geography itself has paid but slight attention to its 
anthropo-geographical aspect, although the earth, as the dwelling- 
place of man, has from ancient times been the subject of its study. 
It was Friedrich Ratzel who filled up this gap in geographical 

23 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


science. His outstanding gifts, both as geographer and as ethno- 
logist, qualified him in a unique way for working up this sphere on 
the confines between the two sciences. 

Ethnology has numerous points of contact with geology, because 
there are many special studies in which ethnology finds it of great 
service. This is specially the case in connexion with questions that | 
deal with the nature of the soil, Geology is also of great assistance 
in archeological ethnology, when it is a question of deducing from 
the strata of the earth the age of the man-made commodities found 
in them. 

Ethnology has also connexions with mineralogy, because the 
geographical distribution of the various stones and metals from 
which mankind has made commodities has had an important 
bearing upon the economic life of mankind. Besides, the ethno- 
logist must call in the aid of mineralogy for a thorough examination 
of the material, stone or metal, from which commodities have been 
made. 

There are also important reciprocal relations between ethnology 
and botany and zoology. Not only is human life profoundly influ- 
enced by the rest of the animate world—plants and animals—but 
the voluntary interference of man with the ways of the animate 
world has also affected both the development and the geographical 
distribution of plants and animals. These important spheres on the 
confines between these sciences are best called ethnological botany 
and zoology. In spite of their importance for a knowledge of the 
economic life of man, however, these two sciences have not been 
made use of as they should have been by ethnology. 

Like mineralogy, botany and zoology are important aids to the 
ethnologist in his examination of the materials, vegetable and 
animal, that have been used by mankind in the manufacture of 
commodities. 

Despite numerous points of contact, ethnology has till now taken 
little interest in physics and chemistry and the closely allied science 
of technology. ‘The only explanation of this is that the ethnologist 
has hitherto devoted very little attention even to that aspect of 
his science where these points of contact are most numerous. 
Physics and chemistry are both mature sciences which have been 
developed with splendid system and method. And technology, the 
science that studies the means and methods by which the raw 
products of nature are transformed into commodities, has been 
a4 


INTRODUCTION 


taught in universities since 1772—at first as a part of fiscal studies. 
Ethnology would certainly have been saved from much dilettantism 
if it had made more use of the results of these three sciences. For 
example, technology divides technique into mechanical and chemi- 
cal technique, according as material is transformed by a change of 
external form in accordance with the laws of mechanics, or by a 
change of substance, in accordance with the laws of chemistry. 
There is no good reason why this useful distinction should be left 
out of account in ethnological technology. An acquaintance with 
general or comparative technology is of special importance for the 
ethnologist. In contrast to special technology, it treats in a com- 
parative way all similar forms of labour which occur in the different 
industries, such as grinding, heating, and drying. 

Chemistry is also useful to the ethnologist, both for determining 
the material of which commodities are made or the nature of the 
soil and for the preservation of the ethnological collections in our 
_ museums. 

The science of medicine, now so systematic and perfect, has, of 
course, a complete history behind it. To follow up the early his- 
tory of medicine involves, inter alia, the study of the relevant 
ethnological material. From the side of medicine there has thus 
arisen a sphere bordering on ethnology. It deserves the attention 
of ethnologists, and the most suitable name for it is ethnological 
medicine. 

Long before ethnology had attained the status of an independent 
science, France, which was the centre of the culture of the eighteenth 
century, had already included in its study of the history of civili- 
zation the conditions of life among native races. The excrescences 
produced by the civilization of Europe constituted a challenge to 
the more profound thinkers of that time to compare these con- 
ditions with those of other times and other peoples. The accounts 
of travellers like Cook and Forster, and of missionaries like Lafitau, 
Loskiel, and Dobrizhoffer, helped greatly to arouse enthusiasm for 
the study of native life. The defective knowledge that then 
prevailed left considerable room for the play of imagination, and 
those who had conceived a distaste for the modern conquests of 
civilization saw in native life a kind of paradise, which they longed 
to regain. Alexander von Humboldt confesses in his Kosmos that 
it was Forster’s descriptions that roused his own enthusiasm for life 
in distant lands. 


) 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


The important result was that the conditions of life among peoples 
outside of Asia and Europe were brought increasingly within the 
scope of students of human civilization. Two of Rousseau’s works 
should be mentioned here—his Discours sur l’origine et les fonde- 
ments de Vinégalité parmi les hommes, and his famous book, Le con- 
trat social. Ever since, the study of human civilization has retained 
its universal character. The ten-volume work of G. Klemm 
(Leipzig, 1843) is a comprehensive encyclopedia of the anthropo- 
logical and historical knowledge of its time. In 1877 appeared Die 
allgemeine Kulturgeschichte of Otto Henne am Rhyn, and in 1886— 
1887 Julius Lippert’s two-volume Kulturgeschichte der Menschheitt, 
and in more recent times Fr. v. Hellwald’s Kulturgeschichte in threr 
natirlichen Entwickelung bis zur Gegenwart (4th ed., 1896-98). All 
these attempts on the part of historians to produce on a merely 
speculative basis, and without any feeling for scientific ethnological 
method, a history of the world from the beginning of human civili- 
zation have done little to promote ethnological study. The same 
must be said of more modern attempts in the same field, like that 
of Lamprecht. The ethnological part of Helmolt’s Weltgeschichte 
is of more value, because that part of the work was entrusted to 
professional ethnologists. | 

The result of these endeavours to include under history the study 
of the life of mankind outside Asia and Europe was that some 
ethnologists began to put their knowledge entirely at the service 
of the history of civilization, and gradually deserted the strictly 
scientific method of ethnology. The main representatives of this 
school are Foy and Graebner in Cologne, and the whole movement 
is usually called the ‘ Cologne School.’ | 

Foy’s point of view with regard to the relation between ethnology 
and the history of civilization is given in the preface to the first, and 
so far the only, volume of his projected Kulturgeschichtliche Bib- 
otek, According to Foy, ethnology is a branch of the general 
history of civilization. Its sole task is to explain the actual causal 
connexions of the facts of civilization, and its method should, he 
says, be that which is applied in all those periods of European 
civilization where the sources are not already chronologically fixed. 
He goes on to say: “ Given this task, ethnology receives a firm 
basis, and takes its place among recognized sciences.” Our defi- 
nition of ethnology at the beginning of this book suggests how one- 


oe is Foy’s view of the task of ethnology. 
2 


INTRODUCTION 


Ratzel demanded, and Weule has recently reiterated the demand, 
that ethnology should follow out the course and the development 
of the civilization of mankind among the peoples outside the civili- 
zation of Asia and Europe. This would form a very important 
point of contact between ethnology and history. 

At a comparatively early period jurisprudence branched off into 
a separate subject with the task of studying the conditions among 
foreign peoples from its own point of view. This branch was 
founded by Hermann Post, and was greatly developed by Joseph 
Kohler, who laid great stress on the conditions found among the 
peoples outside the influence of Asia and Europe. Unfortunately, 
this branch, which is usually called the science of comparative law, 
and which Post calls ethnological jurisprudence, has not received 
due attention from ethnologists. Of course, ethnology must confine 
itself to jurisprudence as practised among the peoples who come 
within its own sphere. The sphere of comparative law is wider. 
In order to keep clear the distinction between the two, it seems 
desirable to restrict the name used by Post, ethnological juris- 
prudence, to this narrower sphere of law outside the limits of 
Asiatic and European civilization. 

No less strongly than jurisprudence, the modern science of 
political economy feels the need of pursuing its studies into all times 
and places, and including economic conditions in the most distant 
times among the most distant peoples. Even the older economists 
made frequent references to the statements of travellers and ex- 
plorers. In particular, early socialistic writers spoke much of the 
social conditions in the ancient Inca state of Peru, of which we have 
a highly idealistic account by Garcilaso de la Vega, himself a 
descendant on his mother’s side of the ancient ruler of the 
Incas. It would have been natural for the so-called Historical 
School of political economy to bring about a closer connexion 
between that science and ethnology, and Wilhelm Roscher in his 
writings has given us a comprehensive account of the economic 
conditions among native races. In modern times Karl Biicher has 
done most in this direction, but there has been no systematic 
working-up of the relevant ethnological literature, such as would 
found a special branch of political economy. To fill up this gap, 
which modern movements have brought into prominence, I have 
collected the relevant material in my Grundriss der ethnologischen 
V olkswirtschaftslehre, and have attempted to lay the foundation of 

27 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


ethnological political economy, as a special branch covering the 
ground common to political economy and ethnology. 

A similar relation has existed between our science and sociology. 
Ethnologists have paid greater attention to the sociological than to 
the economic aspect of their study. Both sciences have pursued 
their way side by side, sociology reaching its results by a more 
speculative method and supporting them by examples from native 
conditions, while ethnology seeks to fit the social phenomena of 
native life into the framework supplied by sociology. 

Seeing that economic motives are very prominent in the social 
organization of primitive humanity, and as the task of ethnological 
political economy is to study social conditions that rest on a 
purely economic basis, the social conditions among mankind out- 
side the influence of Asia and Europe would naturally fall to that 
branch of ethnological study. There seems, therefore, to be no 
good reason for instituting a branch of ethnological sociology to 
cover the boundary region between ethnology and sociology. 

At first the sole task of psychology was to describe the actual 
contents of the individual consciousness and to explain its elements 
and its stages of development. At a later stage, however, it was 
seen to be necessary to subject to a genetic and causal examination 
those facts whose development presupposed reciprocal intellectual 
relations between men. Thus arose a second part of psychology, 
called by Lazarus and Steinthal race-psychology, to distinguish it 
from individual psychology. To prevent misunderstanding, how- 
ever, it should be emphasized that the name race-psychology 
does not mean the study of psychological phenomena among the 
different races—t.e., psychical differences from the point of view of 
race—but rather the study of the ‘racial soul’ as such. The name 
race-psychology has been so widely adopted that it seems better 
to retain it. Wundt uses it in the title of his great work, and 
expressly assigns to ethnology this concrete side of the science—i.e., 
the study of the separate, actually existing race-minds and their 
separate development. Unlike Wundt, Lazarus and Steinthal 
claim this concrete side for psychology ; and they contrast it with 
the abstract side, which deals, as they say, with the general con- 
ditions and laws of the race-mind, apart altogether from the 
separate peoples and their history. 

Being a purely empirical science, ethnology has points of contact 


tad with that type of psychology which, like itself, takes its stand 
2 


INTRODUCTION 


upon facts. With the psychology that is based upon metaphysical 
hypotheses, with its impracticable idea of ‘soul’ and its implied 
fiction of ‘laws,’ ethnology can have nothing todo. If, on the other 
hand, we understand with Wundt by ‘soul’ merely the sum total 
of psychical experiences, then it is clear that in this sense ‘soul’ is 
closely connected with those human manifestations of life which 
form the subject of ethnological study. Just as the contents of 
these human psychical experiences can only be known, apart from 
introspection, from their manifestations, so the limitations and 
laws of these manifestations, including those of mankind outside 
Asia and Europe, can only be exhaustively treated when they are 
taken in connexion with the contents of the psychical experiences 
of the races in question. It is, therefore, not surprising that the 
relations between ethnology and psychology have always been very 
close. The two sciences have a common basis. Many scientific 
investigations, like those of Tylor and Frazer, belong both to eth- 
nology and psychology; and the programme which Lazarus and 
Steinthal printed in the Preface of the Zeztschrift fiir V dlkerpsycho- 
logie und Sprachwissenschaft, founded by them in 1860, is so com- 
prehensive that large portions of the field of ethnology are included 
in this magazine, which is intended to be a collection of papers on 
race-psychology. 

The manifestations of human life outside Asiatic and European 
civilization, so far as they are the outcome of psychical experiences, 
will be treated in a special section of this book. The contents of 
that section cover the wide region on the confines between ethnology 
and psychology, and the best name for it is psychological ethnology. 

Philology is now an old science with a perfected system and 
method. Hitherto it has not been possible to bring it into a suffi- 
ciently close connexion with ethnology. Misled by what may be 
called an exaggerated historical sense, philologists long restricted 
their linguistic studies to a very definite circle of peoples. The 
Indo-Germanic scholar was inclined to exclude all other languages 
except the Semitic family, and it was not till much later that the 
languages of Eastern Asia were accorded a place in linguistic study. 
The languages of native races were considered beneath notice, 
because they ‘had no history.’ But in the meantime the lan- 
guages of many peoples outside Asia and Europe had become 
known through the work of missionaries, and many studies in this 
field, such as Meinhof’s, and D. Westermann’s on the Ewe language 


29 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


or the Ful, are hardly inferior to works of the same kind in the 
Indo-Germanic sphere. In any case, it is now admitted that 
philology and ethnology can no longer dispense with each other. 
If answers are to be given to questions concerning the relationship 
of languages, changes of language, the rise of special business lan- 
guages, or languages for women and special callings, if indeed any 
real historical work is to be done in this sphere, philology and 
ethnology must work hand in hand. 

There has hitherto been little outward connexion between 
ethnology and the history of art. Both sciences have taken up a ~ 
distant attitude toward each other. This is all the more strange 
because the subject of ornament among peoples outside Asia and 
Europe has been treated with great thoroughness by ethnologists, 
and the historians of art have also discussed the art-productions of 
these peoples. If it must be said that the numerous works on the 
history of art have been utterly useless to the ethnologist, owing to 
the absence of any ethnological basis, it must also be admitted that © 
many ethnological works dealing with ornament have been marked 
by caprice and want of method. We need only refer to the frequent 
exhibition of arbitrarily chosen specimens professing to show the 
course of development in ornament, to the attempts that have been 
made to trace back to human or animal models the simplest geo- 
metrical patterns, and also to the mania that attributes to all 
ornament a religious meaning. All this may have had some 
influence in preventing the history of art from showing any great 
interest in the doings of ethnology. 

The modern trend of the science of religion, whose founder was 
Hermann Usener, is to find its main task in the investigation of 
race-religion—1.e., the lower stratum of religious ideas as manifested 
in identical or similar forms. The appearance of this tendency 
made it inevitable that race-religion should be studied as a whole, 
and that the results of ethnological research should be introduced 
into this study, although it took some time before this broad point 
of view commended itself to students of the science of religion. 
The first beginnings of a real comparative study of religion were 
closely associated with comparative philology. It was by a lin- 
guistic path and a comparative method that scholars first tried to 
reach a bygone religion lying behind the several religions. These 
Studies could hardly bring them into the sphere of ethnology, 
because, at the time, linguistic study began with Sanskrit and did 


30 


INTRODUCTION 


not go outside the limits of Asia and Europe. But now the impor- 
tant sphere on the confines of ethnology and the science of religion 
is being worked up by both sciences, and a far-reaching co-operation 
is now taking place. 


THE LITERATURE OF ETHNOLOGY 


Only a brief account can here be given of the important literature 
of our science, and the literature here mentioned either covers the 
whole field of ethnology or deals with large portions of it. 

Unfortunately, ethnology still lacks a general text-book, nor is 
there in existence a really useful bibliography. Steinmetz’s book, 
Versuch einer systematischen Bibliographie der Ethnologie bis zum 
Fahre I9II, is so incomplete and inaccurate that it cannot be 
recommended. 

Of more general ethnological works, we have first Moderne 
V élkerkunde (1896), by Achelis. Its full title is Moderne Vélker- 
kunde, deren Entwickelung und Aufgaben, nach dem heutigen Stande 
der Wissenschaft gemeinverstindlich dargestellt. The book, however, 
is anything but modern, and, indeed, this charge might have been 
levelled against it even in the year when it appeared. 

A work of an entirely different kind is the well-known V élker- 
kunde of Friedrich Ratzel (3 vols., 1887, 1888). It is written in a 
popular style, and can be recommended as an excellent introduction 
to the science. It is, however, a descriptive ethnology—z.e., an 
ethnography—trather than a general ethnology. 

A more recent work is Georg Buschan’s Jllustrierte V dlkerkunde 
(1910). It has been widely read, and it appeared in a greatly en- 
larged second edition intwo volumes in 1922 and 1923. Thesection 
on America, by W. Krickeberg, in the second edition givesan excellent 
account of the races of America and their civilization. Apart from 
a succinct introduction to comparative ethnology, which in fifty-one 
pages deals with the races of the world grouped according to con- 
tinents, Buschan’s book is an ethnographical work. The same is 
true of Karl Weule’s Leztfaden der Vélkerkunde (1912), which is 
written mainly for senior school classes and students. By far the 
largest part of the book is devoted to the description of the separate 
races of the various continents. It has 120 illustrations. Mention 
may also be made here of Michael Haberland’s Vélkerkunde in the 
Géschen series. The first volume deals with general ethnology, and 


KP! 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


the second with descriptive ethnology—z.e., what we here call 
ethnography. 

We come now to a work which, like Ratzel’s, is published by the 
Bibliographisches Institut in Leipzig, and which is also popularly 
written—Urgeschichte der Kultur (1900), by Heinrich Schurtz. This 
book is a history of civilization. It is unfortunate that this accom- 
plished scholar has drawn his wide knowledge almost solely from 
books, and has had little practical experience of natives and little 
knowledge of the material available in ethnological museums. 

A book which has been widely read, and which did pioneer work 
for ethnology in Germany, is Anthropologie der Naturvélker, by 
Theodor Waitz. The first volume, Uber die Einheit des Menschen- 
geschlechts und den Naturzustand des Menschen, appeared in Marburg 
in 1858. The sixth part of the work, dealing with the peoples of 
the South Sea, was not finished by Waitz himself. It was written 
by Georg Gerland in 1872 as a continuation of Waitz’s work. 
Gerland’s Allas der Vélkerkunde (1892), published by Perthes in 
Gotha, should also be mentioned. It contains fifteen maps, en- 
eraved in colour, not only showing the distribution of the different 
races over the world, but also illustrating other matters, such as 
dress, food, housing, occupations, religious customs, etc. 

Of general works, mention should also be made of Anthropology: 
an Introduction to the Study of Man and Civilization, by the English 
ethnologist E. B. Tylor. This book is avowedly an introduction to 
the study of ethnology, and is meant to be a text-book for English 
students. It is compressed into 538 pages. Like Tylor’s other 
works, it is written more from the psychological than from the 
ethnological point of view. 

We come now to the numerous works on general ethnology from 
the hand of the great ethnologist Adolf Bastian. Notwithstanding 
the high esteem in which this great pioneer of our science is held, 
students should be warned against reading his books as an intro- 
duction to ethnological study. His abstruse style, the frequent 
disconnectedness of his thought, the capriciousness and incon- 
siderate jumbling of the philosophies of all times and countries, 
render the reading of his works neither an easy nor a pleasant task. 
In his later years his style of writing became so unintelligible that 
it 1s simply impossible to make out his meaning. One of his best- 
known works is Der Mensch in der Geschichte: Zur Begriindung 
eter psychologischen Weltanschauung (3 vols., 1860). This is one of 
32 


INTRODUCTION 


his earlier works, and the defects mentioned above are not so 
pronounced. Two other works of his are Allgemeine Grundziige 
der Ethnologie (1885) and Die Vorgeschichte der LEthnologie 
(1881). 

Of older comprehensive treatises on ethnological subjects, 
mention may be made of two works that appeared almost 
simultaneously, Allgemeine Ethnographie (1873), by Friedrich 
Miiller, and O. Peschel’s Vélkerkunde (1874). 

Then there is the work in two volumes by Hoernes, Natur- und 
Urgeschichte des Menschen (1909). It is devoted to physical anthro- 
pology and primitive history, but it is a serviceable introduction to 
our science. 

Besides these books, there are also collections of ethnological 
material in the form of periodical literature. Comparatively few 
of these are professedly devoted to ethnology. Most of them 
include, in addition to our science, papers on anthropology, primi- 
tive history and geography. 

First place should perhaps be given to the Zeztschrift fur Ethno- 
logie, the organ of the Berliner Gesellschaft fiir Anthropologie, Eth- 
nologie und Urgeschichte. It was founded in 1869. A similar 
magazine is published in Vienna as the organ of the corresponding 
society there. In France we have L’ Anthropologie, Matériaux pour 
histoire de ’' homme, which incorporates the earlier magazines 
Revue d’ Anthropologie and Revue d’Ethnographie. In England there 
is the FYournal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain 
and Ireland, begun in 1871. This magazine contains nothing but 
papers on ethnological subjects. It has neither reviews of books 
nor accounts of society meetings, but this gap is filled by another 
magazine, founded in 1901, Man, a Monthly Record of Anthro- 
pological Science. It contains short reports of meetings and short 
reviews of books. 

Other German magazines are the Korrespondenzblatt der deut- 
schen Gesellschaft frir Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, 
and the Archiv fiir Anthropologie und Urgeschichte des Menschen, 
Both of these are organs of the Deutsche Anthropologische 
Gesellschaft. Further, there are various publications of the Berliner 
Museum fiir Vélkerkunde. There is, first, the Veréffentlichungen 
aus dem Kgl..Museum fur Volkerkunde, vol. 1 of which appeared 
in 1889. The Ethnologisches Notizblatt of the Berlin Museum only 
lived a short time. A very important magazine is the Baessler 


C 48. 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


Archiv. Beitrige zur Volkerkunde, called after its founder. The 
first volume of this excellent magazine appeared in IQI0. 

We come next to a number of international magazines. First, 
there is the Internationale Archiv fiir Ethnographie, founded in 
1888 and edited in Leyden. Then there is the Revue d’ Eithnographie 
et de Sociologie, published in Paris. Thirdly, there is L’Anthropos, 
Revue internationale d’ Ethnologie et de Linguistique, edited by P. W. 
Schmidt, and, fourthly, Buschan’s Centralblatt fiir Anthropologie, 
Ethnographie und Urgeschichte (1896-1912, Breslau). It contains 
reviews of the newer books. | 

The principal American magazines are the American Anthropolo- 
gist, Annual Reports of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the 
Smithsonian Institution, and Bulletin of the Bureau of Ethnology, of 
which Vols. 30 and 31 contain an excellent manual of the ethnology 
of North America. 

Of a more popular character is the Globus (1862-1910). The 
Ausland, founded in 1828, was incorporated with the Globus in 
1893. There is at present no popular magazine dealing with this 
subject. In Petermann’s Mitteilungen gecfraphy is very prominent, 
and ethnology takes a very subordinate place, so that the magazine 
is very far from providing a substitute for the defunct Globus. 


THE METHOD OF ETHNOLOGY? 


Down to the present day there are great differences of opinion 
among ethnologists as to the interpretation of ethnological data, and 
there are still great difficulties in the way of co-operation between 
the various branches of the science. These differences and diffi- 
culties are largely due to the lack of a uniformly recognized method. 
The seeds of this want of harmony on the question of method were 
sown at the birth of the science. Ethnology attained the rank of 
an independent science from very numerous starting-points, and 


1 There are many books dealing with the subject of method. Graebner dis- 
cusses it at great length in the first (and only) volume of Kultuygeschichtliche 
Bibliothek (Heidelberg, 1911). In keeping with his view of the nature and task 
of ethnology, Graebner urges the claims of the historical method and follows 
Bernheim’s Lehrbuch der historischen Methode (1909). Other works on the 
subject are: 

Ginther: Ziele, Richtbunkte wnd Methoden der Volkerkunde (1904), 
Achelis, Methode und Aufgabe der Ethnologie (1885), 

Bastian, Uber Methoden in dey Ethnologie (1894), 

Steinmetz, Ethnologische Studien (Einleitung, 1894), 

Max Schmidt, Grundriss (Stuttgart, 1920). 


34 


INTRODUCTION 


has all along stood in close relation with other sciences of the most 
varied kinds. From the very beginning, however, it has kept true 
to its character as a branch of natural science. It came into exist- 
ence at the time when Darwin was writing his great work on natural 
selection, which awakened natural science to new life and sent it 
forth on its conquering career throughout all Europe. Lamarck’s 
theory of transformism, as laid down in his Philosophie zoologique, 
attributing the transformation of organic forms to the influence of 
the conditions of life, was finding general support at the time. 
But when Darwin in 1871, in The Descent of Man and Selection in 
Relation to Sex, applied to mankind the results of his theory of 
descent, and thus made the idea of evolution the starting-point of 
all future anthropological study, these new ideas naturally exercised 
a powerful influence on the infant science of ethnology. Theodor 
Waitz, the pioneer of ethnological science in Germany, maintained 
that man must be studied in exactly the same way as all other 
natural objects. He decided, that is to say, in favour of the 
empirical method, and thus from the beginning placed ethnological 
study in Germany among the other branches of natural science. 

This trend toward evolution was greatly strengthened when the 
young science came into closer touch with the science of history, 
which was also at the time under the influence of the same evolu- 
tionary spirit. Seeing that its chief study was the less developed 
conditions of human life, ethnology became an indispensable 
auxiliary to all those sciences which dealt with any aspect of human 
civilization, e.g., the science of law, political economy, religion, or 
philology. 

In its early days ethnology, being thus strongly influenced by 
the idea of evolution, did not escape altogether the errors arising 
from the temptation to transfer simply to human conditions the 
results of the laws of evolution reached inductively in other spheres. 
This was to neglect a very important fact. Just because man is 
able, in a degree far beyond the power of other living beings, arti- 
ficially to create conditions to suit his needs, we have an entirely 
new setting for the evolutionary process, and theories of evolution 
founded on the facts provided by zoology and botany cannot simply 
be carried over to man and his civilization. On the assumption 
that there is a physical and psychical identity and that there 
has been a uniform development of the human race, each of 
the manifold manifestations of human life could be fitted into 


35 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


a definite stage of the progressive evolution of mankind. And 
some recent historians of civilization have attempted, with the 
aid of this method, to arrange in order these artificial stages of 
civilization, and so to give as finished a picture as possible of it 
as a whole. 

Closely connected with these excrescences of the theory of evolu-_ 
tion among ethnologists, there are three methods that have been 
and are frequently followed. These are, first, the making of so- 
called ‘ evolution series,’ second, drawing inferences from what 
Tylor calls ‘ survivals,’ and, third, the application of the “ phylo- 
genetic principle’ to the manifestations of human life. 

Now, although the making of such evolution series, 1.e., arranging 
related phenomena of civilization according to the amount of 
agreement they exhibit, may be of great assistance in the task of 
classification, it is dangerous to draw from such series inferences as 
to the course that evolution has followed. The illegitimacy of this 
method is clear from the fact that every evolution series involves 
a fourfold possibility in the choice of a starting-point for evolution. 
In the first place, each of the two extremes of the series might be 
taken as the starting-point, and already this gives two possibilities. 
Thirdly, both extremes may be taken as two different starting- 
points, and the intermediate forms as the result of the counter- 
reactions of these two extremes. And, fourthly, the two extremes 
might be taken as having arisen from an evolution in opposite 
directions from an original form common to both. 

With regard to Tylor’s ‘survivals,’ it frequently happens that, 
in a complex of institutions and ideas, there are elements that are 
entirely unconnected with the complex and are completely unin- 
telligible in the setting it provides. Applying the law of evolution, 
these were interpreted as being the inorganic and inexplicable sur- 
vivals of former institutions and ideas, and inferences were drawn 
as to the order of succession of the various stages of civilization. 

By the “phylogenetic principle’ is meant the theory that the 
evolution of the species is repeated in the evolution of the single 
individual. Carried over to the manifestations of human life, this 
biological law would mean that the evolution apparent in the 
human manifestations as a whole must be repeated in the gradual 
evolution of the life of the individual from youth upward. There- 


1 Instead of Tylor’s word ‘ survivals,’ Maclennan’s word ‘ symbolism’ is 
often used. 


36 


INTRODUCTION 


fore, the manifestations of the life of the child would correspond to 
those of that part of mankind which has remained at a low stage of 
civilization, and we should thus, for example, be justified in com- 
paring the drawings made by children with those done by native 
races:* 

We now pass to those tendencies of ethnological thinking which 
take up an attitude of opposition to the theory of evolution and 
its results, and which start from entirely different assumptions. 
First, there is the theory of degeneration. It takes up an attitude 
directly opposed to the theory of evolution, and seeks to explain 
the condition of native races as a descent from a higher to a lower 
level of civilization. At bottom this theory is perhaps chiefly due 
to the religious movement in ethnological science. It has found its 
main support there down to our own time, but even ethnologists 
like Martius based their views on this theory of degeneration. 

Another theory, put forward in opposition to the theory of 
evolution, is the theory of culture-zones. It takes as its starting- 
point the fact that there are far-reaching agreements and con- 
formities in the civilizations of population units which are widely 
separated in space and time. The supporters of evolution found 
no difficulty in explaining these conformities, which are usually 
called by ethnologists ‘ ethnological parallels,’ and this view, which 
Bastian expounded in his doctrine of elementary ideas, was for long 
the prevailing one. Assuming a uniform human development, 
then similarity of human natural and mental endowments must, it 
was held, necessarily be accompanied by similar conditions of 
civilization, ceteris paribus. 

Bastian’s doctrine of elementary ideas was later modified, and to 
some extent supplemented, by the conception of convergence, which 
Thilenius first brought over from biology and which Ehrenreich 
afterward developed. This doctrine of convergence includes those 
phenomena whose homogeneousness has been brought about by 
the influence of similar natural and mental environment on pheno- 
mena which were originally different. 

It was Ratzel who first put prominently forward, in opposition 
to one-sided views of independent evolution, the influence of 
migrations and borrowings in producing conformities of civilization 


1 With regard to children’s drawings and their relation to those of native races, 
see Levinstein’s book Kinderzeichnungen bis zum 14. Lebensjahre, mit Parallelen 
aus dev Urgeschichte, Kulturgeschichte und Volkerkunde. 

37 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


among races separated by space and time. He maintained 
that there were no limits to the possibility of the migration and 
borrowing of parts and complexes of civilization. This difference 
of opinion, which thus goes back to the two great pioneers of 
ethnology in Germany, Bastian and Ratzel, led to the formation of 
two schools of ethnologists—the one maintaining that the various 
civilizations are not unrelated, the other insisting on independent — 
evolution. Since Graebner and Ankermann, in their lectures to the 
Berliner Anthropologischen Gesellschaft, expounded their theory 
based on Ratzel’s doctrine, this question of similarities in civiliza- 
tion has become one of the chief problems of ethnology. The main 
lines of the theory of culture-zones are given by Graebner in his 
book Methode der Ethnologie. We cannot enter into it in detail 
here, but it seeks to show, from the existence of similar phenomena 
in civilization, some of which are established by mere external 
comparison of the shape of certain manufactured articles, that there 
are spheres of homogeneous civilization, or, to use the phrase that 
has given the theory its name, culture-zones. The theory has 
recently been carried to an extreme by Graebner and P. W. 
Schmidt. They maintain that even the agreements between the 
civilizations of the Old and New Worlds are to be attributed in almost 
every case to borrowings from the Old World, and on the basis of 
this assumption they proceed to draw the vaguest conclusions as to 
the immigrations that have taken place from the Old World.t 

In trying to answer the question of how ethnological study must 
be carried on in order to produce the best results, we must first recur 
to the definition of the science given in our opening pages. We 
said there that ethnology is the science of the voluntary manifes- 
tations of life among mankind outside the circle of Asiatic and 
European civilization. As these voluntary manifestations are 
external and perceptible by the senses, ethnology is essentially a 
branch of natural science, and only ethnological data established 
by sensuous perception can be the basis for ethnological deductions.? 


1 Cf. Graebner, ‘‘ Die melanesische Bogenkultur und ihre Verwandten,” in 
A nthropos (1909); P. W. Schmidt, Kulturkreise und Kulturschichten in Siid- 
america (1913). 

* This subject is discussed by Neumayer in his Anleitung zu wissenschaftlichen 
Beobachtungen auf Reisen; by von Luschan, Anleitung fiiy ethnographische 
Beobachtungen und Sammlungen in Afrika und Ozeanien (1904). See also Congrés 
intern, a’ expansion économique mondiale, Mons, 1905. 

With regard to the requirements for archeological investigation, I refer 
readers to the small Merkbuch, Altertiimer auszugraben und aufzubewahren (Berlin, 


38 


INTRODUCTION 


These data can be obtained either by direct observation of the actual 
manifestations of human life, or by observation of their effects on 
the surrounding world. All hypotheses based on deduction must 
be taken for what they really are, viz., guiding lines for further 
study. They must never be used as established positions from 
which other ethnological inferences may be drawn. The best short 
answer to the question as to how far ethnological research should 
be deductive or inductive is to say that the results of the deductive 
sciences give it its form, while its contents must be based solely on 
facts established by observation. 

We have just seen that the determination of ethnological facts 
rests on actual observation of the manifestations of human life ; 
therefore, a prime requirement for ethnological study is to obtain 
the material necessary for such observation of what may be called, 
briefly, ethnological material. 

This ethnological material may be of two kinds. First, it may be 
direct material, permitting direct observation—e.g., the inhabitants 
of a village, among whom a traveller resides; or, second, it may be 
indirect material, which allows human activities to be studied only 
in their effects—e.g., some article made by human hands, from 
which inferences may be drawn as to the method of its manufacture 
and its purpose. 

But direct ethnological material may, again, be of two essentially 
different kinds. It may consist of manifestations of human life 
which can only be observed at the moment of their occurrence, and 
which cannot be perpetuated either in drawing or in writing ; or it 
may consist of manifestations which can be thus fixed, so that we 
are independent of the narrow time-limits to which we are confined 
in obtaining the other kind of direct material. 

This fixation of the manifestations of life may be of very different 
kinds. It may be due to the natives who are themselves the sub- 
jects of study, and, where the art of writing is lacking, it may take 
any of the varied forms of pictorial representation, from the 
Bushmen’s simple rock-drawings, depicting scenes from life, to the 
1894, Mittler und Sohn). The handbooks of the Berlin Museums contain instruc- 
tions for the preservation of antiquities. See Rathgen’s Die Konservierung von 
Altertumsfunden, 

There are numerous questionnaives for ethnologists. Schoolcraft gives one 
in the appendix to his Historical and Statistical Information respecting the History, 
Conditions and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of U.S.A. Thereis also the “‘ Ques- 


tionnaire de sociologie et d’ethnographie ”’ in Bulletin de la Société d’ Anthropologie 
de Paris (1883). There are many others. 
39 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


pictorial writing of the ancient Mexicans or of the Maya races. 
But again—and this is commoner—the fixation may be done by 
some one other than the people themselves. In most cases such 
material consists of drawings or descriptions of a lower race by 
some one belonging to a higher race, most frequently by people of 
Asiatic or European civilization. The special value of such fixed — 
ethnological material lies in the fact that, by its means, we are 
enabled to get direct information about human life belonging to a 
nearer or more remote past. Special importance attaches to the 
first or earliest accounts brought home by European discoverers 
from distant lands; in fact, such accounts are in many cases 
the oldest direct ethnological material we possess regarding these 
regions. 

Since the time of the discoveries, and especially within the last 
decades, when European civilization has penetrated farther and 
farther into the countries outside of Europe (there have even been 
official statistical inquiries into native conditions), the literature 
dealing with native races has become enormous. This must, of 
course, be distinguished from actual ethnological literature, but to 
master it is a large part of the task which the ethnologist of to-day 
is called upon to undertake. Unfortunately, this part of his task 
has hitherto been done very unsystematically. Each worker has 
to begin for himself at the beginning. There is not even a properly 
arranged catalogue of the chief literature containing such material. 

We come now to the second kind of ethnologicai material. We 
have called it ‘indirect’ because it enables us to study human 
activities only in their effects. Like the direct material, this 
indirect material is of two kinds. In the one case, it is man himself 
on whom his activities leave their mark ; in the other, it is changes 
in nature caused by human agency—changes which supply an 
almost inexhaustible store of ethnologically important facts. 

That the activities of life produce a reflex effect both on the body 
and on the mind of the man who is the subject of them is beyond 
all doubt. But the great difficulty that besets the drawing of 
inferences from these effects to the activities that produced them 
is this, that it is only when these activities have been frequently 
repeated that they leave perceptible traces on the human body. 
Besides, they are usually of a complex kind. In most cases, all 
that we can deduce from an individual’s bedily habitus is a few 
broad facts regarding his method of life—e.g., his food, some of his 


40 


INTRODUCTION 


diseases or ailments, his musculature, his callosities and traces left 
on his skin by work he has done, the state of his nails, and things of 
that kind. But with greater co-operation between anthropology 
and ethnology it should be possible to secure many more specific 
facts of this kind, and we should be able to deduce from specific 
features of the skeleton, inferences as to certain habitual activities. 
To make clear what is meant, and to indicate the kind of problems 
that still await solution, I would mention the knock-knees and flat 
feet of the Guato Indians. The only explanation of these is the 
attitude adopted by the Guato during their long rowing expeditions 
in their round canoes. From the shape of the leg-bones of prehis- 
toric skeletons found in these regions we ought to be able to deter- 
mine whether the earlier inhabitants were as addicted to life on the 
water as are the Guato of to-day. 

Other material throwing light on the activities of life is found in 
the traces which such activities usually leave on the conceptions 
of man, and on his intellectual faculties, especially on his 
speech, his myths, and his artistic representations. We must, 
of course, leave out of account those cases in which we have an 
intentional or deliberate representation or account of the activities. 
An example will make clear what is meant. During my stay 
among the Guato Indians, an Indian woman, in unconscious 
imitation of the Homeric question tig mo0ev cic &vdpdév; desired to 
know whence [had come. Her question took the form of ‘‘Diruadé 
1okaguahe nitoavi?’’ (What are things like on your shore?) She 
asked further, ‘‘Are there many people on your shore? Are there 
many houses there?” Her question as to the length of my journey 
was put thus: ‘‘Was the river large when you travelled? Was 
your road clear of brushwood?” Even these few words give us a 
peep into the life of these Guato, and reveal how deeply the river 
enters into their thoughts. 

Another rich source for ethnological facts bearing on the external 
conditions of life is found in myths. Ethnologists have paid far 
too little attention to these. Among the mythological figures we 
find, for example, references to the relations between a man and 
his mother-in-law, and to the services which the wooer must render 
to his father-in-law before or after his marriage, etc. 

We now come to the last, and the most important, kind of 
indirect ethnological material—the changes in nature caused by 
human agency. Among these, articles made by man are specially 


41 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


important. How valuable such articles may be as indirect ethno- 
logical material may be seen in the growth of our museums during 
the last decades. To be sure, these contain only articles that can 
be transported. Things like houses and plantations must, of 
course, be studied on the spot. 

Having thus explained as clearly as possible the nature of the 
material which must form the basis of ethnological study, we now ~ 
come to the question as to how this material is to be procured. 
Strictly speaking, the only first-class material consists of ethno- 
logical facts determined by scientific observation on the spot ; 
therefore, the ideal method of obtaining material is that compe- 
tent ethnologists should go and live for a time among natives, in 
places which have been affected as little as possible by European 
civilization, sharing the life of the people and becoming intimately 
acquainted with them and their conditions. Every young ethno- 
logist must surely have the desire to undertake in person such a 
journey of exploration among the natives of some region outside 
Europe, leaving European conditions and leading another life for a 
time among strange men. To be sure, the life of such natives and 
their conditions can only be understood in comparison with Euro- 
pean conditions; but, in order to be able correctly and impartially 
to make such a comparison, we must, as far as possible, lay aside 
all the prejudices which European civilization and education have 
bred in us. Only then can the native and his ways of life be 
properly understood, and only then can we be in a position to receive 
and give a fair account of them. What renders the European so 
detested by most natives is the conceit, sometimes bordering on 
megalomania, which marks his conduct toward them. It is a 
decided mistake if the European imagines that he can impress the 
natives in their primeval forests by his imposing appearance. The 
name macaco branco (the white ape), usually given to the white man 
by the dusky peoples of the more distant Brazilian settlements, is 
a clear proof that the impression he makes is by no means always 
an imposing one. The European may perhaps succeed in imposing 
respect by autocratic methods on a few wretched negroes whom he 
has bought as slaves from some negro chief, but the free native will 
only respect him if he knows how to adapt himself to the simple 
native ways and enter into the entirely different ideas which he 
finds among them. The free native will despise the white man if 
he tries, out of base desire for gain, to enslave him. The native 
42 


INTRODUCTION 


often avoids the European out of fear of syphilis or similar dangers, 
which often threaten his family at the hands of the callous intruder. 
This is not the place to enumerate all the horrors which Europeans 
have brought upon native races, especially in lands colonized by 
Europeans. The literature of ethnology is full of them, and it 
would be an interesting task thoroughly to explore this frequently 
discussed question. Suffice it to say that anyone who is destitute 
of regard for native peoples outside the bounds of Asiatic and 
European civilization, and who is unable to respect the native in 
his domestic and economic life, is unlikely to be a successful ethno- 
logist. The utmost self-control and respect for the native as such 
are the first requirements of the ethnological explorer. He should 
also be a trained ethnologist, with special knowledge of the region in 
which he is working, and he should, above all, have a healthy 
physical constitution, capable of resisting illness and fatigue. 

In order to discover the best method of ethnological observation, 
we shall consider first the various sources of error, and the mistakes 
which may arise, and have often arisen, in connexion with such 
observation. 

The first and most important point is to secure material which is, 
as far as possible, untouched by European civilization. It is in 
our day very rarely possible to find natives who have remained 
untouched, directly or indirectly, by European influences. In 
nearly every case the ethnologist will find himself dealing with 
natives who have already been more or less affected by European 
civilization, and he has to face the difficult task of eliminating all 
that has been affected by these outside influences. Only a trained 
ethnologist can do this. It is very seldom that European civiliza- 
tion, when it first comes into contact with native civilization, 
simply ousts the latter and takes its place. In most cases the first 
result of such contact is something that is neither European nor 
native, but a mixed product ; and the disintegration of the native 
civilization is as noteworthy as the introduction of the European 
type. Itis, therefore, often very difficult for the observer, set down 
suddenly in an entirely new environment, to recognize accurately 
the foreign element in the civilization around him. The amount 
of this foreign element has frequently been underestimated, and 
this has given rise to a large number of erroneous opinions, especially 
on matters relating to mythology and social conditions. Even the 
effects produced on the natives by the mere stay of an expeditionary 


43 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


party among them must not be underestimated. One who has seen 
the native only in the excited condition produced by the arrival of 
an exploring party, when his actions are influenced by fear or greed 
or suspicion, will be apt to form a very erroneous opinion of native 
conditions. Reliable ethnological observation is only possible when 
the excitement has died down and normal life has been resumed. 
Many an error has arisen from generalizing something which was 
largely due to the presence of an expeditionary party. For 
example, it has been repeatedly asserted by Eduard Hahn and 
others that among native races most of the work is left to the 
women, while the men laze about, doing nothing. Such astatement 
may possibly be a correct record of facts observed at a special time, 
but to generalize it is fundamentally wrong. It stands to reason 
that most of the tasks usually done by men are suspended as long 
as the exploring party is in the village. For one thing, the men may 
think it necessary to guard their property and their women from 
the strangers. Or, again, they may try to make the most of such 
an opportunity to acquire products of European civilization. On 
the other hand, the daily tasks of the women are usually of a kind 
that cannot be suspended. They are even increased by the arrival 
of strangers requiring food, which often cannot be prepared before- 
hand. That is why the passing traveller is struck by the fact that 
the women do all the work and fails to appreciate properly the 
amount of work for which the men are actually responsible. 

This unintended result of the presence of travellers has frequently 
been overlooked in connexion with the drawings—chiefly in pencil— 
which the natives are asked to make, The traveller shows the 
native a picture-book, teaches him how to use a pencil, and draws 
a few pictures in his presence. All these things create entirely new 
impulses to practise the art, and such productions done by request 
cannot be considered original and are therefore destitute of real 
ethnological value. 

Another common mistake arises from an excessive generalization 
of isolated phenomena of native life which are not typical. Ethno- 
logical study aims at determining the usual, legitimate features of 
native life, and therefore only those things which are typical and 
form part of the ordinary routine of life are ethnological material. 
Isolated, unusual happenings, like some horrible deed done by an 
intoxicated native, are ethnologically unimportant, and must cer- 
tainly not be made the basis of ethnological generalization. 


44 


INTRODUCTION 


There is an easy psychological explanation of another common 
mistake. The explorer is tempted to look upon the conditions 
which he finds among the natives he is visiting as being something 
specially original, and toseein them the starting-point and origin of 
everything of the same kind. One man easily believes that he has 
discovered the original home of some widely distributed race; another 
thinks he has discovered the very beginnings of art ; and a third 
claims to have found the original dialect of a language that is now 
widespread. It is only too easy for a man who is having his first 
experience of life among primitive people and who is under the 
impressions of an environment that is to him quite new to fall into 
the mistake of imagining that conditions which are the most original 
that he has ever seen are absolutely original. The small group of 
people that he is studying becomes for him the starting-point of 
all further ethnological conceptions. Involuntarily he connects 
all others with his own experiences, and thinks that the starting- 
point of his own observations must be the starting-point of all 
ethnological development. 7 

Having now mentioned the chief sources of error that beset ethno- 
logical study in foreign lands, we pass to consider the actual work 
that is expected from the explorer. It may be summed up under 
these four heads: (1) Direct observation of facts that are of ethno- 
logical importance ; (2) inquiry for such facts among the natives; 
(3) fixation of such facts by description, and, if possible, by illus- 
tration ; (4) bringing home important objects as specimens for more 
detailed scientific study. 

Of these four tasks, the first is by far the most important. It is 
the only unexceptionable way of procuring ethnological material, 
and the questioning of natives should only be used as a secondary 
method, when direct observation is not possible Direct observation 
is the sole method that yields a picture that really corresponds with 
actual conditions—how the natives use their commodities, the 
meaning of their religious customs, how they actually use their 
language, and how they enjoy themselves. One has to be specially 
careful with the so-called ‘serviceable’ men among the natives, 
those men who prove to be best at answering the questions put to 
them and who seem to enter most completely into the purposes of 
the explorer, These are usually men of experience who have come 
previously under the influence of European civilization. And, 
besides, the likelihood is great that, being unconscious of what 


45 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


depends upon their replies, they will answer the questions in the 
manner that seems to be most profitablefor themselves. Very great 
care should be taken with the good narrators of myths, the men who 
profess to be able to tell of things from far-distant times. It is easy 
to accumulate a vast amount of material from such people, but it 
is often of very doubtful ethnological value. 

The ethnological observer is, therefore, following a wrong method 
if he starts with one of those questionnaires which have been drawn 
up for his use. The only legitimate use that can be made of such 
lists of questions is for gathering information from some native who 
is well informed regarding local conditions, and for bringing the 
material thus received to a scientific central institution for further 
examination. Such lists supply a special method for bringing into 
the ethnologist’s workroom at home work which should be done on 
the spot. Of course, the questionnaire has its uses. It makes it 
possible to bring together at one time a large amount of material 
from the most varied regions, but it should not be forgotten that 
ethnological material acquired by questioning can never be more 
than second-class material and cannot be compared with what is 
obtained by direct observation on the spot. The work of filling 
up the schedule of questions by interrogation of the natives should, 
therefore, be left to those members of the expedition who are not 
ethnologists, who can in this way be of great service to ethnology. 

An ethnological explorer is, of course, expected to be able to sift 
ethnologically important facts from other things that he sees ; and 
it will be one of his own chief tasks to extract ethnological facts from 
the raw material at his disposal. The case is different with the 
material supplied by other travellers. In that case, the first task is 
to sift out all that is ethnologically valueless from their descriptions 
and drawings and get at the kernel of important ethnological 
material. Of course, this is a task that can only be done by expert 
ethnologists. 

Besides the material provided directly by travellers, such as 
sketches, reports, and photographs, there are data of two other 
kinds from which ethnological facts can be deduced. These are 
(I) printed literature, which we have called the ‘ literature of the 
sources ’ and which provides raw material for the ethnologist, and 
(2) the objects in our museums. Unfortunately, very little has yet 
been done to work up in a systematic way the raw material con- 
ee in this literature. Every young ethnologist who starts out 
4 


INTRODUCTION 


to study any ethnological question is faced, like his predecessors, 
by the immense double task of finding his way through the enormous 
literature and through the large amount of material in museums. 
At the present moment one of the most urgent desiderata is that 
this literature and the contents of our museums should be once for 
all systematically searched, to get out the important ethnological 
facts contained in them, and that the results should in some form 
be made available for all students. This is, of course, another task 
which only a trained professional ethnologist can perform. Merely 
to extract certain passages from books will never lead to the desired 
result, and will only serve to increase the already enormous literature 
that has to be waded through. To provide a merely mechanical 
description of objects in the museums will be equally valueless. 
All possible means, examination of the technique and of the material, 
as well as chemical analysis, references in the literature, etc., must 
be used to determine once for all the ethnologically important facts, 
with regard to the more important parts of the subject at least, and 
to make them accessible to all interested. 

We come now to the last part of the ethnologist’s task, the ethno- 
logical study of the individual ethnological facts. 

The manifestations of human life, and therefore the ethnological 
facts which are our subject of study, are usually very complex in 
their nature. Like everything else, they are related to time and 
place. But, in addition to that, they are composed of a greater or 
lesser number of single elements, whose extremely complicated 
interrelations are only seen in the concrete fact itself. Further, 
the various manifestations of human life are dependent on other 
conditions of the most varied kind—on the nature of the individuals 
to whom they belong, on surrounding nature, on the surrounding 
humanity, and, finally, on the state of civilization in which the 
individuals in question live and move. 

It is clear that a comparison of phenomena so complex cannot 
possibly lead to any satisfactory solution of ethnological problems, 
even if such a comparison could be carried out. To solve these 
problems we must go back to the separate, constituent elements of 
which the concrete facts are composed. The first step, therefore, 
is to determine these separate constituent elements by an exact, 
scientific analysis of the ethnological facts. Only after this has 
been done can the homogeneous values be, brought together ; 
only then can the ultimate aim of all ethnological study, vzz., the 


47 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


construction of a universal ethnological system, be attained. Analysis 
and synthesis—these are the two functions by means of which the 
solution of the ethnological problems is to be obtained from the 
given values, i.e., the ethnological facts. These two functions are 
our only means of exploiting scientifically the ethnological material. 

In order to illustrate this connexion between scientific analysis 
and synthesis, I may take the actual facts revealed in the process of 
forest-clearing among the Bakairi Indians on the Upper Xingu in 
Brazil. I was able to study it in detail during my stay there in 
1901. On the preceding evening and in the morning before the 
work of clearing the forest was begun the young men danced and 
sang together. They then marched in a compact body, singing and 
dancing, in front of the houses of the village, and with outstretched 
hands demanded from the housewives gifts of food for the period 
during which the work would last. Their songs enumerated and 
emphasized the great services the young men were about to render, 
and contained numerous directions regarding the future treatment 
of the plantation that was to be made. Then they marched, 
singing, to the scene of operations. A piece of ground was to be 
cleared for a householder ; in this case it was for the chief medicine- 
man of the village.. He was not only the leader of the whole party, 
but also the organizer of the attendant festivities. The work of 
clearing the forest was carried out on a definite plan. The trees 
were merely chipped with the axe to an extent sufficient to deter- 
mine the direction of their fall. The one exception was one large 
tree at the edge of the space to be cleared. It was completely felled, 
whereas the others were only chipped ; this tree was felled by the 
leader himself. When it was just about to fall a signal was given, 
and all the workmen retired to a distance. With a resounding 
crash the whole section of the forest fell simultaneously, each tree 
in its fall dragging along with it the trees adjacent to it. A day’s 
work lasted about six or seven hours. Singing their songs, they 
went to a convenient bathing-place, and then marched back in close 
order, singing and dancing, to the village square. In this particular 
case the work was brought to an end with a social festivity on the 
evening of the third day. 

I have here recalled only the chief features of what was in itself 
a very simple matter, but it is clear from what has been said that 
very many heterogeneous ethnological phenomena can be conjoined 
in one concrete case. We find economic and social and purely 


48 


INTRODUCTION 


intellectual elements all conjoined, and it is only after these single 
elements have been disentangled from the whole that comparisons 
can be made with corresponding elements among other races. 
These separate elements, therefore, must first be disentangled and 
then fitted into their place among the similar elements of our 
system. For example, the felling of the trees would find its place 
under the rubric ‘material economy,’ or culture of the soil; the 
presence of the entire population of young men would come under 
“social economy,’ or division of labour; the fact that the planting 
was done for a single individual would come under ‘distribution of 
commodities’ and ‘jurisprudence’; and the nature of the axes 
employed would fall under ‘commodities,’ or ‘manufactures.’ 


THE ETHNOLOGICAL SYSTEM 


From the time when ethnology began, attempts have been made 
to draw up a well-founded classification of the human race, and to 
construct a natural system of it. Of course, any principle of classi- 
fication, whether based on physical, anthropological, or linguistic 
differences among men, can only be applied in one department of 
ethnology—that which undertakes the description of the activities 
of the various population-units—and which is usually called special 
ethnology, or ethnography. 

In the matter of a suitable classification for general or systematic 
ethnology, practically no preliminary work has yet been done. We 
must therefore try to make a system for ourselves which will pro- 
vide a framework for the treatment of all the questions that concern 
our science. Such a system, or classification, of the entire subject- 
matter of ethnology will take very different forms according to the 
principle of classification that is chosen; and any system that is 
here suggested will, of course, be capable of improvement when all 
details have been more fully worked out. 

Meantime, it seems desirable to retain the distinction now 
generally accepted between general or systematic ethnology and 
special or descriptive ethnology, sometimes called ethnography. 

General or systematic ethnology treats comparatively the 
various elements contained in the economic facts regarding the 
manifestations of life among humanity outside of Asia and Europe. 

Special or descriptive ethnology describes the manifestations of 
life within the separate population-units, In order to form a 


D 49 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


uniform whole, special ethnology must be based on the principles 
of general ethnology empirically determined. Its task must not be 
confused with the mere determination and description of ethno- 
logical facts from the raw material available. This part of 
ethnological study is an indispensable preliminary for all ethno- 
logical deductions, both in general and in special ethnology. 

In keeping with the fourfold limitation of human action, the 
entire subject-matter of general ethnology may best be divided into 
four subdivisions. These regard human actions from four different 
aspects : 

(1) as related to the human individual ; 

(2) as related to surrounding nature ; 

(3) as related to surrounding humanity ; 

(4) as related to the intellectual side of human nature. 


The first subdivision, after giving a general account of the nature 
of human actions and the object at which they aim, viz., satis- 
faction of needs, deals with those actions which aim directly at 
satisfying the needs of the human individual. That is to say, all 
actions which are directly connected with the taking of food, treat- 
ment of the body, sexual satisfaction, amusement and worship, and 
which may be summed up under the name of pleasurable activities, 
belong to this subdivision. 

The next two subdivisions are chiefly concerned with the eco- 
nomic aspect of human life ; the second deals with the material side 
of it, and the third with its social side. 

The fourth subdivision comprises all that is connected with the 
mental or intellectual aspect of human activity; the chief pheno- 
mena here are manners and customs, art and religion. 

The most suitable classification for ethnography, or descriptive 
ethnology, is a threefold one: 


(1) A general part, dealing with the questions that concern 
the classification of the human race. 

(2) A descriptive account of human activities as found among 
the various groups of humanity. 

(3) An account of the geographical distribution of the various 
ethnological phenomena. This should also form a part 
of special ethnology; but it is not dealt with in this 
treatise. 


Ete) 


PART I 


GENERAL OR SYSTEMATIC 
ETHNOLOGY 


SC RiOy Na 


VOLUNTARY HUMAN ACTIVITIES IN RELATION 
TO THE HUMAN INDIVIDUAL 


CEA ein 
THE NATURE OF HUMAN ACTIVITIES 


CCORDING to the dictum of Herbert Spencer, life is ‘the 
A erricses adjustment of internal relations to external 
relations.”” Even if we express this differently and say that 
in the lower creatures life is metabolism and in the higher creatures 
life is the maintenance of the balance of energy the word ‘life’ in 
both cases implies a process ; and so far as this process assumes an 
external form, thus becoming perceptible by the senses, we can 
speak correctly of ‘manifestations of life’ or ‘activities.’ By 
“human activities,’ therefore, we mean this process in man. These 
activities may be of two kinds. They may be purely physical 
functions, solely determined by unchangeable natural law, or they 
may be activities which are more or less under the control of the 
human will. According to the definition of ethnology with which 
we started, it is only with this second kind of human activities, the 
‘voluntary activities,’ that our science deals. 

From the standpoint of natural science, of which in the fullest, 
strictest sense ethnology is a branch, it is only the human individual 
that ‘lives.’ Therefore, all human activities, no matter whether 
they are voluntary or involuntary, can only proceed from the human 
individual. Even if the human will, which controls the voluntary 
activities, is itself affected by a great many causes lying outside 
the human personality, such as natural environment, human 
environment, or intellectual environment, still the starting-point of 
the activities directed by the will can only be the human individual 


Ly! 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


as such. Various attempts have been made from the side of racial 
psychology, by men like Lichtenberg and Gumplowicz, to detach 
the actual life functions from the human individual and to transfer 
them to human society. But all such attempts, for which the high- 
sounding name of supraorganism has been invented, are to be 
rejected as incompatible with the spirit of natural science. 

When we compare the activities of man with those of other 
living beings the chief difference between them is found to consist 
in this: whereas all the activities of the members of one and the 
same species of animals are uniform in their nature, human voluntary 
activities exhibit greater or less differences. Of course, speaking 
generally, there is also a certain amount of uniformity in human 
activities. Were it not so, all ethnological study, whose chief 
object is to ascertain these uniformities, would be hopeless. But 
there is always a certain amount of room left for the free play of 
individual choice, and this involves the possibility of variation from 
the general rule and, consequently, the possibility of a gradual 
change in the activities of any given group of human beings. It is 
this possibility of variation in human action, and the accompanying 
great power of adjustment possessed by man, that explain the large 
variety of human activities. These are, indeed, the prime requisites 
of any advance in civilization. It is this possibility of variation 
that rendered it possible for some portions of mankind to take the 
lead in the gradual development of human activities, while other 
portions were left behind at a lower stage of civilization. 

From this it is clear that their somatic and racial differences do 
not explain the differences that characterize the activities of the 
various portions of mankind. This is confirmed by the fact that, 
when we take the individual as the starting-point of human activity, 
there can be equally large or even larger differences between the 
activities of members of one and the same race than between those 
of individuals belonging to entirely different races. In comparison 
with the differences that exist between human activities, racial 
differences are far too slight to be looked upon as the causes of the 
former. Assuming that humanity forms one species, human acti- 
vities would exhibit as much uniformity as those of one and the same 
animal species, unless special forces, acting on the individual from 
without, produced differences. Therefore, when we compare man 
with other animals, conformity of activities is to be taken as the 
normal element and difference of activities as the special element 


§2 


Bake NALOURE- OF HUMAN ACTIVITIES 


which distinguishes man from other animals, and it is of this that 
ethnology has to supply the explanation and proof. 

Remembering that humanity forms one species, we can only 
speak of heterogeneity in connexion with those activities which are 
controlled by the human will, z.e., the ‘voluntary’ activities. It is 
the human will that directs human action into various paths, 
according as it is determined by forces acting upon it from outside. 
Such forces can only affect human action through the agency of 
the human will. There are three kinds of forces which can thus 
influence human action, either in co-operation or in opposition to 
each other. There is, firstly, the natural environment of the human 
individual; secondly, the human environment; and, thirdly, the 
intellectual or mental environment. Inthe measure in which these 
three forces continuously exercise their joint simultaneous influence 
on the human will and produce differences among the various 
sections of humanity, the corresponding human activities will 
necessarily also vary. Ultimately, therefore, it is in the different 
nature of the milieu, geographical, social, and intellectual, that we 
must look for the cause of the differences between human activities. 
The ensuing chapters on general ethnology are to be devoted to a 
more detailed examination of these geographical, social, and 
cultural limitations of human activities. 


53 


CHAP LT ei 


THE SATISFACTION OF WANTS AS THE AIM OF 
HUMAN ACTIVITIES 


PEAKING quite generally, the object aimed at in the satis- 

faction of human wants is the satisfaction of the wants of 

human life. This is equivalent to saying that, just as human 
activities have their origin in the human individual, so they are 
directed toward man as an individual. As we have already said, 
from the point of view of natural science it is only the individual 
man that can be conscious of wants, and it is only the individual 
that can experience the satisfaction of them. It is by no means 
necessary, however, that a given human activity should always 
originate in the same individual toward whose satisfaction it is 
directed ; it can just as readily be directed to the satisfaction of the 
wants of other individuals. According as the former or the latter 
is the case, we call it egoism or altruism. These are the two motive 
powers that produce human activities. It should be said, however, 
that these two conceptions are not necessarily always opposed to 
each other. Frequently they are so opposed, and egoism may 
involve injury to others; we shall have to return to this point 
when we come to discuss hostile intercourse between men. But the 
two can also be in close co-operation, and altruism can be practised 
in order to achieve the satisfaction of personal wants, or, vice versa, 
activities directed toward self-preservation may also secure the 
satisfaction of the wants of others. In such cases it is sometimes 
very difficult to decide whether some act of altruism is to be con- 
sidered as a means of self-preservation, or whether some act of 
self-preservation should be adjudged to be merely a means for 
securing the well-being of others. This is a matter on which, up 
till now, ethnologists have been able to throw little light, but it is 
closely bound up with important problems of social economy. 
Altruism can only be practised when there is a suitable object on 
which it can be exercised. A superabundance in one direction must 
result in a lack on the other side. The contrast which appears 
almost everywhere, in a more or less pronounced form, between 


54 


Vik SATISFACTION OF WANTS 


those who have and those who have not, between the ruling class 
and the dependent class, can only be understood and appraised in 
one way. We must look at this contrast both from the standpoint 
of the giver and from that of the recipient and try to understand it 
in its relations both to egoism and altruism. It is only from this 
same standpoint that we can understand the peculiar relations 
which frequently exist between adjacent groups of mankind. They 
make war upon each other, seek to inflict loss on each other, and 
snatch economic advantages from each other, without, however, 
aiming at that complete destruction of their adversary which 
would bring with it political and economic results that cannot be 
estimated. 

The wants, to the satisfaction of which human activities are 
directed, can be of many kinds. They may be purely physical, 
like the need of food, of rest, of sexual satisfaction ; or they may be 
purely intellectual, such as artistic or religious satisfaction. But, 
further, the nature of all these types of want may vary among 
different races. Some races prefer vegetable food, others must 
have animal food ; some have a desire for certain means of enjoy- 
ment, like alcoholic liquors, tobacco, salt ; while other races reject 
these, even when they are available. One race likes to adorn its 
articles of use with various kinds of ornament, whereas among other 
races hardly anything of the kind is found. Clearly, therefore, if 
we again assume that all mankind belongs to one species, external 
conditions affect the wants, just as they affect the activities of 
mankind. 

A change in human wants can be brought about by a great 
variety of causes. For example, a different kind of natural environ- 
ment demands a different form of activity, calling for an entirely 
different display of physical and mental powers, and involving a 
different expenditure of human energy. Increased labour means 
an increased need of food, and the great desire of the polar races 
for fatty food is directly due to the low temperature of their country. 
Again, men’s wants and needs are greatly affected by their habits 
of life, and these in turn are closely connected with the external 
conditions of life. To the man who is accustomed to a roaming 
life, a roaming life becomes a necessity. The man who is in the 
habit of using alcoholic liquors or tobacco finds it a deprivation 
when these are denied him, whereas other men and other races 
have no desire for them. 


55 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


Even although the history of development and anatomy reveal 
a close relationship between man and the other vertebrates, the 
differences in somatic details are still important enough to give man, 
in respect of his mode of life, a position apart from all other living 
beings. In comparison with other animals, important parts of the 
human body exhibit so great an inferiority that he is at a serious 
disadvantage. For example, his upright posture has reduced the 
number of his organs of locomotion, with the result that man is far 
inferior to most animals in speed of movement. The small size of 
the skeleton of his face, together with the smallness and close 
position of his teeth, disadvantageously affect the most important 
functions, the taking of food and the power of defence. His com- 
plement of hair is so scanty that it no longer serves its original 
purpose of protecting him against climatic influences, and numerous 
races remove it as an unnecessary or troublesome adjunct. All 
these defects make it impossible for man to satisfy his wants 
exclusively, like the animals, from the materials placed at his dis- 
posal by nature. On the contrary, he finds it necessary by artificial 
methods to procure special aids to enable him to satisfy his wants. 
In the case of man, therefore, as contrasted with the animals, the 
process of satisfying his wants, whether purely physical or mental, 
is predominantly of an indirect kind; and for this indirect satis- 
faction of his wants nature has provided him with important 
advantages over other animals, even over the anthropoids. Above 
all, nature has given him a comparatively large brain with a pro- 
portionately large cranium. It is this advantage in brain develop- 
ment which man possesses over animals that provides the somatic 
conditions necessary for the free play of his mental functions as 
against his other life functions, and it is on this that his superiority 
in the animal kingdom rests. In his upright posture man finds a 
further special qualification for the indirect satisfaction of his wants. 
lhis, it is true, limits his locomotive activity to his hind extremities, 
but, on the other hand, it sets free his hands as prehensile organs, | 
and this provides the somatic condition necessary for the power man 
possesses of using tools. 

Thus, the physical difference between man and animal rests 
chiefly on his differentiation as a creature with hands and brain, a 
“ tool-making animal,” as Franklin called him. This has made 
man’s relation to surrounding nature entirely different from that 
which is found among animals. He is obliged to procure indirectly 


56 


PHE SATISHACTIONZORVWANTS 


the natural materials required for his support—that is, he requires 
to work, and for this purpose nature has given him, in his hands 
and in his brain, the somatic requisites in a far higher measure than 
to any other creature. 

The name usually given to all the processes and BPrane erent 
which aim at providing man with the commodities required for the 
satisfaction of his wants is ‘economy.’ Even the physical nature 
of man, we have seen, renders him dependent on economy. Where- 
ever man is or has ever been, there has been an economy of one kind 
or another. Indeed, without such economy, human life is simply 
impossible. It would be a hopeless task to try to investigate the 
first beginnings of economy in human history. As soon as men 
came into existence economy of some kind became a preliminary 
and necessary condition of human life. 

We have now seen that, even by his physical constitution, man 
is rendered dependent on an indirect satisfaction of his wants—that 
is tosay, onthe ‘economic process.’ But there is a further question, 
whether there is still any room, and if so how much, in human life 
for that direct satisfaction of wants which man has in common 
with the animal. To answer this question, we must first define 
and distinguish more clearly the words ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ 
satisfaction of wants. 

We speak of ‘direct’ satisfaction of wants when any human 
activity procures the immediate satisfaction of man’s needs from 
the materials supplied by nature. For example, the Indian plucks 
with his own hand a fruit from a wild tree and forthwith eats it ; 
or he gathers with his own hands twigs or small branches and makes 
a soft couch for himself. Even in this latter case his activity is 
as immediately directed to the satisfaction of his wants as is that 
of the bird building its nest. We have ‘indirect’ satisfaction of 
wants when the satisfaction is brought about by the use of means 
which must first be produced or procured by human activity. For 
example, the Indian plants a tree whose fruits he at a later time 
plucks and eats; or he makes a special flat club with which he 
knocks down the fruits from the tree. In these cases the human 
activity is first directed to the manufacture of definite means for 
procuring satisfaction—+.e., it is in the first instance work, and as 
such stands in contrast to that kind of activity which aims directly 
at the immediate satisfaction of want and which is called ‘pleasur- 
able activity,’ or ‘consumption activity’ ; but the whole process of 


57 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


satisfaction always concludes with ‘pleasurable activity.’ There- 
fore, whereas in the case of indirect satisfaction of want—1.e., in an 
“economy ’—we have both work and pleasurable activity, in the case 
of direct satisfaction, there is only pleasurable activity. 

Thus, the question how far there is direct as well as indirect 
satisfaction of wants in human life is another form of the question 
as to what extent there is pleasurable activity without preliminary 
work. A complete answer to this question could only be given 
after all the various kinds of pleasurable activity among the 
different races had been examined with this in view; but it may 
be said here and now that, even among the most primitive races, 
pleasurable activity is almost always found conjoined with previous 
work of some kind, either the manufacture of a simple digging stick 
for lifting bulbous roots, or of some simple tool for hunting or fishing, 
or the manufacture of a simple mat for a couch, or a ball to play 
with, or an instrument with which to accompany the dance, or a 
fetish or an altar for the performance of religious rites. In all such 
cases we are dealing with indirect satisfaction of wants—that is to 
say, with economy; and it would seem as if direct satisfaction of 
want were almost as rare among primitive races as it is among 
peoples of developed civilization, Of course, among these latter, 
wants have become much more subtle and the means for their 
gratification have become more elaborate. 

The process of direct satisfaction of wants—e.g., the direct satis- 
faction of hunger, of the sexual appetite, of the desire for play, or 
even of religious need—is usually conjoined with pleasurable 
feelings in the individual concerned. On the other hand, in the case 
of indirect gratification, the expenditure of physical energy, 1.e., 
work, is conjoined with feelings of distaste, and is therefore felt to 
be a burden. As a natural result, man seeks to reduce to a mini- 
mum this unpleasant element, this ‘economic’ activity; and, 
therefore, in his economic activities he tries to attain the greatest 
possible economic result from the natural materials at his disposal 
with the least possible amount of labour. His economic activities 
are therefore determined by this purpose. This is what is usually 
called the ‘economic principle,’ or the ‘principle of the smallest 
means.’ 

The attempt to reduce the amount of labour necessary for the 
production of the aids required for the satisfaction of wants can be 
made in various ways. It can be achieved by a better knowledge 


58 


LAE SSATISEFACTION-OF WANTS 


of the suitable materials provided by nature and by a constantly 
improved exploitation of the powers of nature. It can also be 
attained by a division of labour and a distribution of commodities 
among the separate economic groups, and among the individuals 
who compose these. The economic principle thus exercises a 
decisive influence both on the material economy and on the social 
economy of man, and is, therefore, one of the most important 
factors in the economic history of mankind, and consequently in the 
history of the world. 

We have seen that nature only very rarely provides mankind 
with the means for a direct satisfaction of his wants, so that he is 
mostly compelled to provide himself with such means artificially, 
by labour, in the economic process. The sole aim of this latter 
process is to provide the individual with such means as will directly 
aid in the satisfaction of his wants. For example, it gives him food 
ready for consumption, articles of adornment, and so forth. Goods 
of this kind, so far as they are of a material nature, are called 
“pleasurable goods,’ in contrast to ‘productive goods.’ These 
latter do not directly provide enjoyment, but, like the stone axe, 
are used as means to manufacture pleasurable goods. Of course, 
there are numerous cases in which one and the same commodity, or 
class of commodities, can be both pleasurable and productive goods. 
For example, a house not only protects the human body against 
the inclemencies of the weather, but also performs the important 
function of protecting goods against wet. So also the fire-place 
serves not only to banish the feeling of cold, but also to cook food. 
Special interest attaches to those cases in which commodities that 
were originally productive goods became at a later time mere orna- 
ments; e.g., the claw of the armadillo, which the Indians on the 
Upper Xingu use as a digging tool, is used among the Bororo 
Indians as a neck ornament ; and the tribes on the Upper Xingu 
wear a dibble, specially ornamented, as an adornment for the back. 

Pleasurable goods are subdivided into ‘consumption goods’ and 
“goods for use.’ The former are intended for immediate consump- 
tion, like prepared food; and the latter are meant for use, like 
clothing and ornaments. This distinction is of great importance. 
In the case of pleasurable-consumption goods the consumption 
involves the loss of the commodity in question, and therefore no 
special importance is attached by the producer to its shape. The 
shape of manufactured consumption goods, therefore, usually 


59 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


represents the simple result of the process of production. It has no 
connexion with the purpose which the article is to serve, nor is it 
the result of any special intention on the part of the producer. The 
shape of the flat flour cakes, which are the commonest vegetable 
food of the inhabitants of the forest areas in Brazil, is entirely due 
to the manner and method of their manufacture, and chiefly to the 
size of the pan in which they are made. There are, of course, some 
exceptional cases in which even consumption goods are shaped in a 
special way. Even races outside of Europe, such as the Huichol, 
frequently make cakes in all manner of shapes. But in such cases 
there is always some religious or other motive, apart from the actual 
purpose for which such pleasurable-consumption goods are intended. 
On the other hand, in the case of goods for use, the shape is the 
really characteristic element, and the material of which they are 
made is comparatively of subordinate importance. 


60 


CHAPTER III 


ACTIVITIES IMMEDIATELY DIRECTED TOWARD 
PERSONAL SATISFACTION 


PERSONAL CONSUMPTION 


A S we have already seen, every satisfaction of want as such 


involves pleasurable activity—that is to say, activity that 

affords pleasure to the individual whose want is gratified. 
But, whereas the direct satisfaction of wants finds its end in this 
pleasurable activity, in the case of indirect satisfaction of want 
the pleasurable activity is merely the last phase of the whole pro- 
cess of satisfaction; the other phases involve labour—that is to say, 
an activity which is in direct contrast to pleasurable activity. We 
must, therefore, draw a distinction between the pleasurable activity 
of direct satisfaction of wants and that of indirect satisfaction. In 
order to mark this distinction, it is usual to call the latter kind of 
pleasurable activity “personal consumption,’ or simply ‘consump- 
tion.’ This personal consumption, therefore, as the last phase of 
indirect satisfaction of wants, is a part of the economic process as a 
whole. Being a pleasurable activity, however, it is in sharp con- 
trast to the other parts of the economic process, to productive or 
industrial activity, which is the production of commodities by 
means of labour. 

Owing to the close connexion between personal consumption and 
the human individual, it will be better to discuss the various forms 
of this last phase of indirect satisfaction of wants at this early 
stage of our course. 

We turn first to the taking of food. The fact that man is omni- 
vorous lightens, it is true, his struggle for existence, because the 
animal and the vegetable kingdoms supplement each other in pro- 
viding him with food. But, on the other hand, the same fact makes 
it necessary that his place of abode should be able to supply him 
with both vegetable and animal food. The proportion between 
the amount of animal and vegetable food eaten may, of course, 
vary greatly. In all continents there are races whose animal food 
is reduced to a minimum, while others live chiefly on meat or milk. 


61 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


The distribution of the various food stuffs in nature is, of course, 
of decisive importance for this proportion. But the extent to 
which, even in those regions where animal food is abundant, the 
need for vegetable food is felt is shown by the fact that some 
Eskimo races, whose vegetable food is scanty, endeavour to make 
good this defect by eating the contents of the stomach and intestines 
of the reindeer. On the other hand, the desire for animal food is in 
some cases strong enough to cause men to eat the flesh of their own 
species. . 

Leaving out of account the mania for eating certain kinds o 
clay, the so-called geophagy, the only mineral substance that is 
extensively used with food is salt. One other mineral used in some 
regions with food is lime. Indians of the South American plateau 
add lime to coca, and in the Malayan Archipelago and in a large 
part of Oceania it is mixed with areca-nut and pepper-leaf and 
chewed as betel. 

Another indispensable substance obtained from inanimate nature 
is water, and it is only in special cases that a substitute for 
it can be found. Such substitutes are plant juices—the juice of 
the agave, of various species of cactus—or animal liquids—milk 
or blood. 

Just as some races prefer vegetable food and others prefer animal 
food, so they also differ as to the plants or animals which they 
choose for this purpose. A food popular with one race may be re- 
jected by another. Some races even eat indigestible substances like 
the bark of trees, bast, and seaweed. And there are even greater 
differences with regard to the species of animals that are eaten, 
apart altogether from the numerous prohibitions which exclude 
certain species, either because they are looked upon as totem 
animals or for some other reason. The choice of the species which 
may be eaten is occasionally quite arbitrary. In many parts of 
South Africa where fish are abundant some negro races eat no fish ; 
others, like the Indians in the Brazilian forest-lands, eat only 
certain kinds. Among the ancient Mexicans and the Polynesians 
dog-flesh was considered a delicacy, while other races, including 
the peoples within the bounds of European civilization, reject it. 
Similar contrasts are found with regard to the eating of horseflesh. 
Numerous tribes, like the Bushmen, eat almost every species of 
animal, not excepting the lowest orders, snakes, frogs, and worms, 
even the intestinal worms found in the stomachs of cattle. When 


62 


PERSONAL SATISFACTION 


an Indian on the Upper Xingu finds a louse on his companion’s 
head, he forthwith eats it—with evident relish, Among the 
Guato Indians the same word means head-louse and honey. The 
most striking difference, however, in connexion with the use of 
animal food is that, while many tribes eat human flesh, others 
decisively reject it. 

While it is possible that the unjust accusations brought against 
each other by adjacent peoples have given rise to exaggerated ideas 
with regard to the prevalence of cannibalism among uncivilized 
peoples, there can be no doubt that it plays a not inconsiderable 
part in the economy of certain parts of the world. The existence 
of cannibalism seems to have no connexion whatever with the 
general stage of civilization of the races who practise it. In many 
cases peoples with a fair degree of civilization practise or have 
practised it; for example, the Aztecs in ancient Mexico, the 
Nyam-Nyam, the Fang races in Africa, and the Mangbattu on the 
Upper Welle, of whose cannibalistic propensities Georg Schweinfurth 
gives such a vivid description in his book Im Herzen von Afrika. 
Cannibalism used to be very common in Melanesia, among the 
natives of New Zealand and other Polynesians, as well as on the 
continent of Australia. In the New Hebrides there was an actual 
trade in human flesh carried on between the various islands ; and 
the Fiji Islanders not only ate captives taken in war, but compelled 
certain neighbouring tribes to pay an annual tribute of human flesh. 
On the American continent cannibalism was common in North, 
Central, and South America, and the Toncava and the Iroquois are 
said to have practised it very extensively. There are accounts of 
it in South America among the Botocudo, the Apiaka, and the 
Miranha. Among the Botocudo of Ingreknung young war captives 
were fattened before being eaten. The Apiaka kept and reared 
children taken in war till they were twelve years old, and held a 
great festivity when the time came for killing them. Young 
women were sometimes kept five or six years before they were 
killed ; and it is said that among the Miranha people in South 
America and the Mangbattu people in Africa human flesh was 
dried and preserved, in order that it might be used as occasion 
demanded. — 

Even if the practice was frequently due to the idea that a dead 
enemy's bravery or other good qualities passed over into the man 


who ate a portion of his body, there can be no doubt that the 
63 


THE PRIMVTFIVE RACES GH MANKIND 


chief cause of it was nothing other than a liking for human flesh 
as such. 

This striking phenomenon, cannibalism, has, of course, been 
frequently discussed in ethnological literature. A distinction has 
been drawn between endo-cannibalism and exo-cannibalism, the 
former being the eating of members of one’s own tribe, and the 
latter the eating of members of other tribes. In exo-cannibalism 
the victims were mostly captives taken in war; in endo-cannibalism 
they were chiefly deceased relatives. 

Only a brief reference can be made here to the various methods 
of preparing foodfor use. The only vegetable substances which are 
eaten raw, without any preparation whatever, are the fruits of 
certain plants which have been expressly cultivated by man and 
brought to the point of yielding an abundance of palatable fruit. 
Most other vegetable stuffs require preparation before they can be 
eaten by man. The same holds good of animal food. Some 
primitive races, it is true, are said to eat flesh raw, and indeed that 
practice is not unknown among the most highly civilized peoples. 
The ancient Peruvians are said to have eaten both flesh and fish 
raw. But in all such cases there must have been some kind of 
preparation of the raw flesh. The cutting-up of the slain animal 
with the help of special tools was of itself an important item of 
preparation. The means which nature has given man would be 
absolutely insufficient to enable him to make direct use of a large 
mammal to satisfy his hunger. Speaking generally, animal food 
and vegetable food are either boiled or grilled or steamed before 
being eaten; only in rare cases is it roasted in fat. The ancient 
Mexicans are said to have roasted their flesh food in dog-fat. Some 
African tribes are said to eat meat that is already half decomposed, 
and I have myself seen members of the Indian races of Brazil 
eat addled eggs, and even lizards’ eggs in an advanced stage of 
incubation. 

The races of mankind exhibit a similar variety in their ways 
of eating and drinking, and also in the utensils employed. Like 
the peoples of higher civilization, native races have their fixed 
customs, which they follow with the utmost strictness. . Solid foods, 
especially grilled meat, are mostly eaten with the fingers. One 
exception must be mentioned—the practice among the Fiji Islanders 
of eating human flesh with the aid of special wooden forks. Foods 
boiled in water—for example, the dish consisting of bananas boiled 


64 


PERSONAL SATISFACTION 


along with fish, which is popular among the Guato Indians—are 
eaten by means of flattish shells. Spoons proper, with handles, 
are limited to definite areas, and even in these areas to a special 
class. Among the Guato Indians only the men eat the banana 
dish mentioned above with large wooden spoons, while the women 
convey it to the mouth with shells. Spoons are also made of clay, 
or, as among the North American Indians, of horn. Water and 
other beverages are drunk sometimes with and sometimes without 
a special utensil. The South African Bushman drinks in a standing 
posture, throwing the water into his mouth with his hand; while 
the Senoi in Malacca convey it to the mouth in a folded leaf. Other 
races regularly use the skins of pumpkins or coconut as drinking 
vessels. Among the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans drinking 
vessels, cleverly made and ornamented, were in use, as well as cups 
of clay, wood, and metal. The Peruvian aristocrats used to drink 
from valuable cups of silver and gold. It is also well attested that 
many peoples used drinking cups made of skulls. This practice 
was widespread throughout large areas of the American continent, 
especially among the Araucans. The Chaco tribe of Mataco are 
said to make cups from the scalps of their slain enemies. Mention 
should also be made of the suction-pipe used by various tribes. 
The Eskimos use small tubes of this kind to suck up the melted 
water underneath the snow. The natives of Queensland use a 
similar utensil to suck the contents of eggs. The Waganda in East 
Africa regularly use tubes of this kind, and the Guato Indians 
use them to suck the palm-wine from holes made in the trunk of the 
akuri-palm. 

We cannot here enter into the numerous drinking customs prac- 
tised on festive occasions. Native races, like others more advanced, 
have a high opinion of good drinking powers. Among the Paressi 
Indians in Central South America I have myself seen each guest 
compelled to empty at one draught a large cucumber-skin, handed 
to him by the chief, filled to the brim with the intoxicating chitshag 
liquor, even although he was unable to retain for any length of time 
such an enormous quantity of liquid. 

Among utensils used in connexion with other forms of gratifi- 
cation, special mention should be made of the tobacco-pipe. Cere- 
monial importance is frequently attached to the pipe, as well as to 
the smoking of tobacco. These pipes vary greatly both in material 
and in shape. They are of wood, clay, or stone, and the Caraya 


E 65 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


Indians of South America simply use the fruit-cases of the jaquitiba- 
tree as tobacco-pipes. The Prairie Indians use a special form of 
pipe, carved out of red pipestone and attached to a long round or 
flat wooden stem. The pipes of the inhabitants of the north-west 
coast of North America surpass in richness of carving those of all 
other native races. Larger or smaller wooden pipes of simple tube 
form, or with pipe heads set at right angles to the stem, are used 
throughout large areas of South America; whereas other tribes, 
such as those in the Xingu area, do not use pipes of any kind, but 
smoke the tobacco in cigar form. This was also the practice 
among the ancient Mexicans, the outside leaf of the cigars being 
replaced by atube. The negro tribes of Rio smoke extremely long, 
thick cigars, which require to be supported by a wooden holder 
shaped like a fork. In Africa, where the smoking of dacha, a 
species of hemp, had long been known, the tobacco-pipe and tobacco 
itself were introduced soon after the discovery of America and 
extensively adopted. Pipes of all shapes were used, some being 
quite simple, like empty banana-skins, on which a poke of leaves 
was placed. Or, again, holes were made in the ground and the 
tobacco was burned in these, the smoke being inhaled through an 
opening. But there are also some extremely clever forms, especi- 
ally those used by the Bali in the Cameroon hinterland. Dacha, 
or bang, 1.e., the dried leaves of Cannabis indica, a species of hemp, | 
is usually smoked in a special kind of hookah, provided with a 
water-container, through which the smoke is drawn into the mouth. 
This dacha-smoking is practised chiefly in the eastern and southern 
areas of Africa. 

The powdered pepper-leaf, already mentioned, is used in two ways. 
It is blown into one’s own nose or into a neighbour’s nose by means 
of a double tube, consisting of two fowl-bones joined at an acute 
angle ; and it is also used as an enema. We may also mention the 
small, spatula-shaped instruments with which the Malays and 
Polynesians convey to their mouths their betel-lime, lifting it out 
of the small, beautifully ornamented boxes of wood or bamboo. 

Under the subject of treatment of the body may be gathered 
together a number of consumption activities which have directly in 
view the welfare of the human body. These concern not only the 
actual treatment of the body, but also such matters as costume, 
athletic exercise, and recreation for the healthy body, treatment 
during illness, and the burial or disposal of the dead body. 
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PERSONAL SATISFACTION 


By care of the body we mean all those consumption activities 
which are occupied with the care of the skin and the hair. They 
include the activities that aim at keeping the body clear of dirt and 
vermin, and they involve the use of all kinds of pleasurable-con- 
sumption goods. Speaking generally, it may be said that cleanli- 
ness is found in very different degrees among different races, but 
this does not mean that greater cleanliness always accompanies 
higher civilization. Among the races that go almost naked we find 
some that are among the cleanliest sections of mankind—such as 
the majority of Polynesians and many of the Indians of the forest 
area of South America. Some of these bathe regularly several 
times a day. The Bakairi Indians of the Xingu area invariably 
bathed before they returned home from their work in the forests. 
And among the Paressi Indians special bathing-places close to each 
settlement were made by enlarging the small, narrow streams, and 
these were constantly used by both old and young. 

Almost all races pay particular attention to the care of their hair, 
especially to the removal of the head-lice that are common among 
them. The comb is found among every people in the world, and 
appears in numerous forms. Among the Indians of the Upper 
‘Xingu river the lice are carefully combed out every morning and 
immediately eaten. Many races also use special hairbrushes made 
of animal bristles. Treating the hair with butter or vegetable oils 
is a widespread practice, and so is rubbing it with earth or lime as 
a protection against insects. Another common custom is that of 
removing the hair of the head; in some cases it is simply pulled out 
by the roots. This is done by means of small hair-tongs, and some 
of these, like the dainty instruments used by the ancient Peruvians, 
were made of gold, silver, or copper. Small mirrors made of 
polished pyrites were also used by the Peruvians and Mexicans. 
Mirrors and hair-tongs are also said to be much used by the Dyaks 
in Borneo. 

Like the hair, the skin of the body is also frequently greased with 
oil mixed with dye-stuffs. In most cases the purpose of the practice 
is to secure protection against troublesome insects. 

Numerous negro tribes in Africa are noted for the care with which 
they keep their teeth clean, using for this purpose tooth-brushes 
made of wood that has been teased out or fibrillated. 

Closely connected with actual care of the body are the various 
means used by mankind to improve the outward appearance, and 


67 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


which may be briefly called dress. The style of dressing is 
determined not only by taste and fashion, but also by numerous 
external circumstances, and it has taken manifold forms among the 
various sections of mankind. Keeping in view the purpose to be 
served, we may distinguish two main forms of dress: first, ornament, 
which is worn for the esthetic purpose of beautifying the outward 
appearance, and, second, protective dress, worn to protect the 
body against external influences, such as cold, wet, rough ground, 
thorns, and attacks of men or animals. Besides these two main 
kinds, there are others, such as masks, badges of rank, dress worn for 
decency. Although these do not directly serve either of the purposes 
mentioned above, they are indirectly closely connected with them. 

The means used by mankind to beautify the person are very 
numerous. Some tribes artificially modify the shape of the body 
itself. Such modifications are called deformations. They are of 
many kinds, such as the following : 

1. Deformation of the Skull. Either the skull is forced into a 
turban-like shape by means of cords tied tightly round the heads of 
children, as among the ancient Peruvians and certain Maya races, 
or the heads of the children are so compressed by a flat piece of 
wood tightly tied to the head that the skull is flattened at the 
temples or at the back of the head. 

2. Deformation of the face, 1.e., either the nose, ears, lips, or 
cheeks. Some Australian tribes forcibly compress the nasal bones 
of their children, in order to flatten still further the naturally flat 
bridge of the nose. Various parts of the face are perforated for 
the wearing of ornaments. For example, the septum of the nose 
is perforated, and small stone cylinders or ornamental feathers are 
inserted ; and some civilized races of America wear large disks of 
precious metal attached pendant-wise to the perforated septum, 
Others, again, perforate the sides of the nose or cheeks and wear 
similar ornaments there. The wearing of rings or pegs in the per- 
forated upper or lower lip is a widespread custom, and occasionally, - 
as among the Botocudo in South America and some African races, 
these deformations are very grotesque. The hole in the lip is 
gradually enlarged to such a size that only a narrow edging of lip 
is left to surround a large flat disk. In the same manner ear-pegs 
of gigantic dimensions are worn, requiring large holes in the lobes. 
Some tribes enlarge the perforation in the ear to such an extent 
that the edging of ear-lobe can be drawn over the head. 


68 


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3. Deformation of the Teeth. This takes two forms. The teeth 
are filed to a sharp point, or some of the front teeth are knocked out 
altogether. 

4. Hacking off Fingers and Toes. This is practised by the Hotten- 
tots and South Sea races, for example, to mark special events, such 
as the death of near relatives. 

5. Deformation of the Male or Female Pudenda. This is widely 
practised in the form of circumcision or the removal of a testicle. 

6. Constriction of Parts of the Body, such as the lacing of the 
waist by some tribes in New Guinea, or constriction of the arm or 
leg muscles by means of tight bandages, as practised by some tribes 
of the South American forest Indians. 

7. Deformation of the Skin. There are two types: either scars 
are induced by repeated incisions in the epidermis, and even in 
the subcutaneous cell-structures, or the skin is tattooed—.e., dye- 
stuffs are introduced under the epidermis, after the skin has been 
pricked with needles, or with a special, small, rake-like instrument. 

Of the numerous forms of adornment of the body only a few can 
be mentioned here. They are: 


Dressing the hair so as to make it assume special shapes. 
Many races devote great care to this form of personal 
adornment. 

Painting the body. 

Gumming ornamental feathers on the body, a practice very 
common among the most primitive races. 

The above-mentioned practice of wearing ornaments on parts 
of the face perforated for the purpose. 

The wearing of rings on arms, legs, fingers, and toes. 

Necklets, pendants, girdles of stringed beads. 

Ornaments worn on the body itself, such as ornamented 
dibbles, worn on the back by the Indians on the Upper 
Xingu. 

Covering the body, or parts of it, with various material, which 
can be put on or off at will. In contrast to the affixing of 
feathers, this is a form of genuine ornamental dress. 


The mention of this last type of ornament, ornamental dress, 
brings us at once to the subject of clothing. By clothing we mean 


1 The definitions in the text and the classification of clothing are taken from 
O. Mau’s dissertation on Die Kleidung bei den Naturvilkern Stidamerikas. 
69 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


all those commodities which form an extended cover for the body, 
or parts of it, and which can be put on or off at will. According 
to this definition, clothing is a part of our present subject, dress, 
because it has in view the embellishment of the outward appearance. 
Clothing is indeed a very complex conception, which has more in 
common with our modern civilization than with the conditions 
among primitive races, and there is hardly a suitable word for it 
in any of the native languages. 

The commodities falling under this head exhibit great variety, 
not only in the purpose they serve and the material of which they 
are made, but also in the method of manufacture and the shape 
they assume. From the point of view of their purpose, the 
following kinds of clothing can be distinguished : 

(1) Protective Clothing. Clothing of this kind serves as a means 
of protection against all manner of external influences. Clothing 
made of hides, cloaks of wool, or rubber are used as protection 
against climatic influences like cold and wet ; hats and protective 
glasses, like snow-glasses, against the sun’s rays; sandals, shoes, 
the moccasins of the North American Indians, against the rough- 
ness of the ground; sandals, shoes, leggings, leather breeches, 
against thorns and the bites of dangerous animals, like snakes, 
fishes, scorpions; wristlets, against the stroke of the bowstring; 
also forms of protective armour like helmets, mail, and greaves 
against hostile weapons of attack. 

(2) Ornamental Clothing. This has already been dealt with 
(p. 68). | 

(3) Masks, intended to render the wearer unrecognizable, or to 
cause him to be taken for other than he is. 

(4) Clothing worn from Motives of Decency. Only when arrange- 
ments of this nature assume an extended form do they become 
clothing. Neither the cover for the penis, nor the loin-cord, worn 
by many native tribes of Africa and South America, can properly 
be called clothing, nor can the small triangle of bast, the uluri 
worn by the women of the Upper Xingu to cover the private 
parts. 

(5) Clothing of rank, reserved for special classes as insignia of 
rank, like the leopard-skin worn by the chiefs of various African 
races, or the yellow head-bandage of the rulers in ancient Peru. 

(6) Clothing for the dead, the covering of the dead body and the 
cerements of mummies. 


79 


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PERSONAE SALISBFACTION 


A second classification of clothing is based on the material of 
which it is composed. It is as follows : 


Clothing made of skin or leather. 

Clothing made of bast or bark. 

Clothing made of material artificially made by basketry, 
weaving, knitting, or netting. 

Clothing made of metal, such as helmets, mail, greaves, or of 
small wooden rods or fillets, ‘rod-mail.’ 


Most peoples attach great importance to physical training. ‘This 
is due to the important place in the economic process occupied by 
the individual as a source of working power. Among many races, 
e.g., the North American Indians and the Zulu Kafirs of South 
Africa, the entire education of the youth aims at the best possible 
training of first-rate warriors. Among the Zulus this martial 
training involved such severe physical hardening that a proportion 
of the boys succumbed to their exertions. 

Among the activities aiming chiefly at the promotion of bodily 
strength and agility are athletic exercises, like racing, wrestling, 
ball games, and similar competitive sports. These will be dealt 
with in detail in a later section (p. 80). The early attainment 
of the requisite bodily strength is promoted among most native 
races by making the children take part at an early age in the pro- 
ductive labour of their parents. The boy helps his father in his 
work, and the girls bear their share of domestic labour under the 
superintendence of their mothers. This inurement of the youth 
was also the aim of many of the customs attending the attainment of 
theageofpuberty. Itwasalso promoted by theclassification of the 
young people according to ageand by the system of secret societies. 
These involved for the boys and girls concerned severe chastisements 
and the undergoing of various tests of their bodily robustness. 

We must also include in this connexion the provisions made for 
physical relaxation. Even among primitive tribes this involves 
the use of many special means and methods. These include not 
only houses, which afford shelter so that men can enjoy rest and 
protection against the inclemencies of the weather and hostile 
attacks, but also such provisions for rest and sleep as couches, 
bedsteads, hammocks, sleeping-mats, stools, chairs, and headrests. 
There are, besides, other auxiliaries, like coverings or blankets, and 
special protections against troublesome insects, like mosquito-nets. 


71 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


Let us take first the house, in its character asashelter. It should 
be noted that we are here dealing with only one of its various 
utilities. The conception ‘house,’ which we may define as a 
structure shut in above by a roof, is a very complex one. Like 
clothing, it may fulfil numerous and varied purposes, be composed 
of various materials, and assume numerous shapes. For example, 
the large ‘sib-house,’ in the South American forest area, may, as 
a place where economic activity is carried on, be classed as a pro- 
ductive commodity, but, on the other hand, as a place of sleep for 
its inhabitants, it is also a pleasurable commodity. This latter 


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Fig.1. A SHELTER OF THE GUATO INDIANS (SOUTH AMERICA) 


a, b, c, skeleton poles; d and e, cross-poles to bear the roof-covering 
of palm-leaves. 


aspect, however, is often a subordinate one. The Guato Indian 
usually sleeps in the open, beside or in front of his cabin, which is 
used as a storeroom for his property or as a refuge from heavy 
rain. Other Indian tribes have, in addition to their large work- 
rooms, separate sleeping quarters at places more or less distant and 
specially protected against mosquitoes. Ina later chapter we shall 
see that the house is also sometimes used as a place for festivities, 
or as a means of defence against hostile attacks. 

Taking the house as a shelter, we can distinguish three main 
types, according to the purpose in view. There is, first, the easily 
portable tent used by nomadic peoples. It consists of a framework 
of poles, covered with skins or leather or other materials; second, 
the house used by more settled peoples and suited for a more lengthy 
stay; and, third, the shelter cabin, usually of very simple con- 
struction and meant for temporary use. We shall not here enter 


72 


PERSONAE SSA IS PAG LION 


upon a detailed description of the various forms of the house which 
is at the same time a place for economic activity and a means of 
defence. But it may be well at this stage to point out what has 
hitherto received little attention, viz., the significance of the shelter 
cabins, which are usually erected on the main routes of traffic. 
Shelters of this kind, meant to provide night quarters for the passing 
traveller, I found in all the Indian areas of Matto Grosso—among 
the Bakairi Indians of the Upper Xingu, among the Paressi on the 
Upper Cabagal, on the Yauru and the Yuruena, as well as among 
the Guato Indians in the marshes of the Upper Paraguay. In all 
cases they were small cabins with gabled roofs reaching to the 
ground and leaving the gable-ends open. 

Among nearly all tribes special arrangements are made to provide 
a comfortable couch for the human body. There are very few 
races, and these are all at a low stage of civilization, who employ no 
special commodities in the making of their sleeping places. Even 
the Bushman of South Africa, who simply makes his bed in the 
sand, lies close to a fire and enjoys its warmth. The Fuegians lie 
at night closely huddled together on grass or rushes spread round the 
fire which burns in a depression of the small half-conical cabin. 
They sleep naked under one common cover of sealskin. Some 
Indians of the South American forest area sleep on the ground, 
lying on mats or skins, as do also the Caraya Indians; and the 
Guatos use large mats plaited from the pinnate leaves of the akuri- 
palm. Many races, especially those who have made some progress 
in civilization, do not sleep on the level ground, but on a raised 
surface variously prepared. In some cases it is a sleeping bench of 
clay, running round the inside of the house wall. This is a very 
common form of couch among African races, especially in the 
Sudan, and among the tribes of the north-west coast of North 
America. Another form of raised couch, common both in the Old 
World and in the New, is the four-cornered bedstead. In its usual 
form it is a wooden frame standing on four feet, with wooden slats 
or leather thongs laid transversely. Similar bedsteads are used by 
numerous negro races, as well as by American tribes like the 
Chaco and the ancient civilized races of Central America. The use 
of hammocks is confined to distinctly limited areas, but they are 
the regular form of couch among the settled Indians of the eastern 
forest area of South America and in New Guinea. 

The coverings used during sleep include blankets of all kinds and, 


73 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


in rare cases, there are special arrangements to secure protection 
against mosquitoes and other insects. The Guato Indians use a 
kind of mosquito-net shaped like a large inverted bag, made of 
thickly plaited fibres of the tucum leaf. This is hung over the 
couch with the open end downward. The style of its manufacture 
proves that it is an ancient indigenous commodity. 

The head or neck is sometimes supported on a headrest, among 
the native races of Central America and Melanesia, for example. 
Its chief purpose is apparently to prevent the disarrangement of 
the sleeper’s cotffure. 

Brief mention may also be made here of the arrangements used 
to support the body in a sitting position. Such arrangements are 
by no means universal among mankind. If no natural support, 
like a large stone or a fallen tree-trunk, is available many races 
simply squat or sit on the ground with their legs crossed beneath 
them. The simplest arrangement is a four-cornered block of wood. 
It is often hollowed out underneath, to be easier to carry, and 
looks like an inverted trough. The two smaller sides may then be 
removed; hence the sledge-like stool, common in South America. 
A further improvement is to remove the middle portion of the two 
longer sides, and then we have the four-legged stool with a four- 
cornered seat. All these stages in the evolution of the stool are 
found among the Guato Indians to this day. The wooden stool 
with round seat is very common in Africa. It is, however, reserved 
for privileged ranks, for chiefs or magicians ; and the same is true 
of the chair, which is merely a stool with a back. It is usually 
reserved as the chief’s chair, or as the throne-seat of even higher 
dignitaries. 

All races of mankind have some specific forms of sick-treatment. 
Most of them are directed to the cure of disease, but in numerous 
cases they are employed to hasten death when illness has made it 
imminent. 

There are two main kinds of treatment used to cure the patient. 
Sick-treatment is either magical and seeks to remove the cause of 
the trouble, which is ascribed to supernatural powers, or it follows 
actual medicinal methods; but the two are sometimes so inter- 
mingled that it is hardly possible to say in a particular case where 
the one ends and the other begins. 

Among peoples of low civilization illness is rarely attributed toa 
natural cause, but is referred to the mysterious action of hostile, 


74 


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PERSONAL SATISFACTION 


supernatural powers. Naturally, therefore, magic plays a large 
part in the healing of disease among such peoples. The sole source 
of help is believed to lie with those who have acquired supernatural 
powers, and their aid is sought to discover the invisible, hostile 
demons, with a view either of appeasing them, or of driving them 
away. Hence the great importance attached to the magician or 
priest in his character of medicine-man. We need not here describe 
in detail the varied and often extremely complicated magical cures 
accomplished by the medicine-man. His equipment includes a 
special style of dress. Among North American Indians this is a 
complete costume of a very fantastic kind. A special stool is 
indispensable, and he makes use of rattles and talismans or charms, 
and various medicines which he keeps in a special bag. Very 
frequently, after the patient has been subjected to a tedious process 
of kneading or sucking or blowing or fumigating, some minute 
foreign body, such as a small root or animal’s claw, or even a small 
animal, is sucked by the medicine-man out of some part of the 
patient’s body and declared to have been the cause of the illness. 
Even in these magical cures various forms of treatment are 
employed, which, like the kneading or massage mentioned above, 
constitute actual medical treatment. These are found even 
among uncivilized peoples. There are cold-water cures and hot- 
water cures. The perspiration cure, which is used even by those 
who have no illness, is found among tribes in Central and North 
America, where small ‘ perspiration houses’ are built for the purpose. 
A large number of actual medicines are also used. ‘These are 
mostly vegetable substances, some of which have been adopted 
into our own pharmacopeeia, but materials of animal origin are also 
used as medicines, including boiled human flesh and human blood. 
The practice of blood-letting is so widespread that it can almost 
be said to be universal. Sometimes it is done without breaking 
the skin; sometimes incisions are made, or the skin is scarified. 
There are cases, too, of actual bleeding, and of operations akin to 
our Own cupping. Various instruments are used—knives, shell 
splinters, flint, obsidian, thorns, or fish-bones. The South American 
Indians employ a special scarification instrument, a piece of pump- 
kin rind studded with sharp fish teeth. Actual lancing was done 
by North American Indians, and by the ancient Peruvians, with 
small lancets, consisting of stone splinters set in a handle of wood. 
Another common method, found in many parts of the world, is to 


75 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


shoot small arrows from a bow into various parts of the patient’s 
body until a large blood-vessel is hit. The usual cupping instru- 
ment is the upper end of an ox (or buffalo) horn, perforated at the 
point. The wide end is placed on the skin, and the small hole at 
the point is vigorously sucked so as to create a vacuum. Then the 
small orifice is quickly closed by means of a small piece of wax. 

Of major operations performed in regions outside of all contact 
with Europe and Asia, two have long been known, v7z., trepanning 
and Cesarean section. Skulls have been found which leave no 
room for doubt that trepanning was practised in ancient Peru, and 
there are interesting parallels from the South Seas. The inhabi- 
tants of Uvea, one of the Loyalty Islands, frequently perform this 
operation in cases of headache, neuralgia, and other affections of 
the brain. The soft parts of the head are severed with a cut, and 
then a hole is carefully scraped through the bone of the skull to the 
dura mater with a shark’s tooth or, in more recent times, with a 
piece of glass. 

Cesarean section is attested both among the Chipewayan Indians 
in North America and the Waganda in Central America. Felkin 
has described the method of operation as practised by the latter 
tribe. The woman was drugged with banana wine, and the wall of 
the abdomen was laid open by a quick cut extending from a little 
above the pudenda to a little under the navel. 

We now come to the treatment of the body after death.1_ We shall 
deal later with the religious ideas here involved, especially those 
regarding the souls of the dead. Here we are mainly concerned 
with two characteristic differences between the dead and the living 
body, which largely dictated the special treatment of the former. 
These are its liability to decay, and its defencelessness against 
external influences. 

The perishable nature of the dead body compels the relatives 
to part with it soon after death, unless special measures are taken 
to check decay and its unpleasant results. On the other hand, 
natural affection or actual religious ideas forbid that the dead body 
should simply be put away and abandoned to speedy destruction 
by wild beasts. Thus all the numerous forms of disposal of the 
dead have the purpose either of evading the unpleasant results of 
decay by a suitable treatment of the dead body or of preventing 


* Cf. Theodor Preuss, Die Begrabnisarten der Amevikaner und Nordostasiaten 
(K6nigsberg, 1894). 


76 


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SNVIGN] VWNOMNVIN AHL AO MOIMALNI-ASNOY 





PLATE t0 





MOSQUITO-NET OF THE GUATO INDIANS 
South America. Original in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 





SLEEPING-MAT OF THE GUATO INDIANS a9 
South America. Original in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 


PERSONAE SSA LISEACTION 


its destruction by wild animals, at least for a time. There are 
exceptions. In some cases the relatives keep the dead body in the 
dwelling or carry it with them wherever they go; in other cases 
they deliberately take measures to hasten its destruction by wild 
beasts. This latter custom is found in its most pronounced form 
among the Parsees of Near India. They deposit their dead in the 
“Towers of Silence,’ pits surrounded with walls, to be devoured by 
the vultures. The Tibetans load the corpse with a stone and cast 
it into the river, or place it in a boat and abandon it to the waves. 

The following are some of the methods adopted with a view of 
avoiding the unpleasant effects of the decomposition of the corpse: 
burying it in the ground, drying it in the air (2.¢., it is placed ona 
platform, or onatree, at some distance from the ground), cremating, 
embalming, skeletonizing, and, lastly, eating it. Some of these 
methods may be followed successively. The body may first be 
buried, and after a time exhumed ; the bones are cleanly separated 
from the decayed flesh, and then again buried orretained. Similarly, 
bodies may first be embalmed and then buried. 

These various methods of disposing of the dead are carried 
through by different tribes in different ways. The following are 
the chief varieties of actual burial in the ground. 

The body is buried in the clothing and with the ornaments which 
were worn in life, but sometimes special grave clothes are used. 
Only in very rare cases is a body put into the ground without 
enwrapment of some kind. In almost all cases some covering is 
used, in order to prevent direct contact with the earth. The body 
is wrapped in skins or mats, securely tied with cords, or it is placed 
in a coffin of wood or stone, or put into an urn, or the head is covered 
with an earthen bowl. Or, again, it may be simply covered with 
brushwood. Covering may be omitted if the body be laid in a 
subterranean vault. The vault is sometimes a mere cave in the 
earth, a lateral niche in a vault, or it may be lined with stone slabs 
or masonry. Burial in natural caves is another variety of this 
method. 

The posture of the body in its resting-place may also vary. In 
some cases it is laid at full length, lying on the back or on the side, 
or, as is frequently the case among American native tribes, it may 
be placed head downward, or it may be buried in a huddled attitude. 
Graves also vary in depth. Among some tribes the grave is so 
shallow that the earth above the corpse is hardly sufficient to 


19] 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


protect it from wild beasts. There are also cases where the corpse 
is simply laid on the ground and covered with stones or merely 
with brushwood. 

This last-mentioned method brings us to the various arrange- 
ments made over or near the place of burial. These include mounds 
of earth, stones, or masonry, stone enclosures, cabins, and grave 
monuments of all kinds. All over the world the most amazing 
structures in existence are such erections in memory of the dead. 
It is sufficient to mention here the huge grave mounds of the North 
American Indians, and the ancient Mexican pyramids, which are 
hardly less magnificent than those of Egypt, and the mighty 
ancestral figures of stone and wood which are found in various 
parts of the world. 

With regard to the situation of the resting-places of the dead, in 
some cases there is one burial-place for all the inhabitants of a 
community; in others, again, the dead are buried separately. 
Sometimes the grave is in the house where the deceased lived ; 
sometimes the house continues to be inhabited by those left ; some- 
times it is abandoned. In other cases, again, the dead are buried 
in the village square, close to the dwellings of the community, or, 
lastly, they may be laid to rest at a place more or less distant from 
the village. 

In the case of air burial the corpse is placed at some distance from 
the ground, dressed or swathed exactly as for ordinary burial in the 
earth. A suitable tree is chosen, or a suitable platform or stage is 
erected for the purpose. In many cases this air burial is merely 
temporary, and when the soft parts of the body have disappeared, 
the bones are either buried or preserved. Usually, while the corpse 
is so placed as to be safe from quadruped beasts of prey, it is left to 
be devoured by birds of prey. 

There are also various methods of cremation. The body may be 
placed on a funeral pile and burned with or without the addition 
of combustible materials, like oil or fat; or, as among the Mongols, 
it may be cremated in large furnaces specially built for the purpose, 
or, as among the Yama, in pits dug in the earth. The cremation 
may be entire or only partial, the bones being left. It may be 
carried out either before or after decomposition has set in; the 
whole may be burned, or only the soft parts, or only what has 
remained from one or other of the temporary methods of burial. 
The resultant ashes are simply left where they lie, or they may be 
78 


PLATE rt 








SCRAPING INSTRUMENTS OF COWHORN USED BY THE To0GO NEGROES 


Western Sudan 
Photo Klose 











SHAVING THE HEAD AMONG SUDAN NEGROES 


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6L OVNVOVHOVd GNV AVONVH) WO ‘SHINWOAY NVIANYAG INAIONY 




















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PERSONAL SATISFACTION 


buried or preserved, usually in special urns. In some places the 
ashes are powdered and mixed with some liquid and drunk at a 
special celebration, or they are mixed with some other substance 
and smeared on the face in sign of mourning. 

The embalming of dead bodies, a custom which was extensively 
practised by the ancient Egyptians and Peruvians, is still common 
among many tribes in South America, in North and Central 
America, in the Aleutian Islands, in East Asia among the Ainu, and, 
lastly, in many parts of Oceania. 

Embalming may be either natural or artificial. In the former 
case it takes place altogether without human intervention, as a 
result of natural conditions, like dryness of the air or special qualities 
of the earth. It is still uncertain how far the ancient Peruvians 
artificially assisted the natural process. But the dry soil and the 
presence of saltpetre were the chief agents in the process. The 
artificial means used are of various kinds. Sometimes the body is 
first eviscerated in order to make it more capable of preservation. 
In Virginia the skin was removed, the flesh cut or scraped from the 
skeleton, and the skin drawn back again over it. In other places 
the corpse is simply dried out over a fire or grilled. 

The purpose of this mummification is to make it possible for 
those concerned to keep the body for a longer or shorter period. 
In ancient Peru solicitude for the mummies of the departed rulers 
went so far that their palaces and their servants and the rest of 
their property were left for their use. Banquets even were given 
in the name of a deceased ruler, and his mummy was brought to the 
banquet halltorepresent the host. Usually, sooner or later there was 
a burial service, and the mummy, specially attired and enveloped 
in numerous tissues and provided with numerous other articles, was 
definitively buried. 

The skeletonizing of the dead body may be either a natural pro- 
cess, in which the soft tissues are disintegrated during temporary 
burial in the earth or in the air, or an artificial process, in which 
these tissues are separated from the skeleton either before or after 
decay has set in. Among the Choctaw Indians the tissues were 
removed by the finger-nails of a specially appointed operator from 
two to four months after death. In South America the Warrau 
threw the corpses into the Orinoco to be reduced to the skeleton 
condition by the piranha fish, and the Xingu Indians placed the 
bodies where the tissues would be devoured by ants. 


79 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


The purpose in view is to enable the relatives to retain at least 
a portion of the dead person in their dwellings ; and in many cases 
this is done. The Iroquois keep them in a small house close to 
their own cabins. North American Indians subsequently burn 
them or bury them in the earth, either when the time of the next 
commemoration festival comes round, or when the bone-house is 
full. Other tribes, again, carry the bones about with them where- 
ever they go, until a suitable burial-place is found. The same 
process of skeletonizing is resorted to when it is desired to reduce 
the remains to proportions which will permit them to be bestowed 
in an urn too small to contain the whole body. 

Lastly, the dead body is disposed of by being eaten. The con- 
queror eats his conquered foe, or a dead man is eaten by his nearest 
relatives. Old people are frequently killed and eaten. The 
Botocudo in South America did this, and among the Samoyedes 
old, frail people actually begged their children to kill them. A 
baptized Mayoruna Indian is said to have bewailed the fact that, 
when he died, he would be eaten by worms, instead of by his 
relatives ! 

In such cases either all the flesh or only certain parts, such as the 
marrow of the bones, are eaten by the relatives. In a modified 
form of the practice the pulverized bones, or the ashes of the 
cremated body or skeleton, are mixed with food or drink. 

We are dealing here only with those pleasurable activities which 
are personal-consumption activities, and which therefore constitute 
the last phase of the productive process, and for this reason we 
allude here to only those aspects of sexual satisfaction which involve 
the use of means which are the result of economic process. We 
have already mentioned the various forms of artificial deformation 
of the male and female sexual organs, and have also enumerated 
various articles of apparel which are at least indirectly connected 
with this subject. Other means and methods used for this purpose 
the ethnologist will find described in the relevant literature. 

By ‘play ’ we mean all those activities which have no definite 
ulterior purpose, and which are done merely for their own sake. 
They are thus essentially different from productive and industrial 
activity (7.e., from labour), the object of which is to produce or 
procure the things required for the satisfaction of wants. 

The desire to play can quite well find gratification in the direct 
satisfaction of wants, and in that sense even an animal can ‘play.’ 


80 


AOYINY 0JOYd 
eolloury Y}NOS 
TIvd-dvap{ ONIAVWId SNVIGN]J ISSHAVd 














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€1 ALWId 


PLATE 14 





AUSTRALIAN RELIGIOUS CEREMONY 


a photo 


in 


Berl 


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graph in the Ethnological Museum 


rom. 


F 


Pack SONAL SATISPACTION 


But human play very often involves the use of special means which 
can only be produced or procured through the economic process—a 
ball, a chess-board, or dice—and to that extent the play-activity of 
mankind, like other consumption activities, may be regarded as the 
final phase of an economic process that produces or procures them. 

Notwithstanding this contrast between play, even when it is a 
consumption activity, and actual work, there is frequently a link 
of connexion between these two kinds of bodily activity among 
primitive peoples, especially among their young children. Bodily 
fitness and capacity for work are often acquired by playful activity 
in the years of youth. For example, small boys will shoot at some- 
thing with small arrows, or construct diminutive fish-traps to catch 
small, useless fish, or try in other ways to imitate the productive 
activity of adults. Or, again, real practice for subsequent produc- 
tive activity is found in all sorts of sports or games like racing, 
wrestling, boxing, and ball games. These playful activities are 
far from being useless in perfecting the bodily strength and agility 
so necessary for the productive process. Still, when such activities 
are indulged in merely for their own sake, and not for any economic 
purpose, they are play and not work. Among some uncivilized 
peoples there is another point of connexion between playing and 
economicactivity. Actual labour is frequently preceded or followed 
by dancing and singing. Among the Bakairi Indians on the Upper 
Xingu the work of forest-clearing is preceded by several evenings 
of dancing and singing. They dance and sing on their way to the 
scene of their labour, and, after working six hours, they dance and 
sing on their way home. We shall see in a later section of this 
chapter that religious conceptions also sometimes enter into various 
forms of productive activity. 

These external points of contact between play and work among 
primitive peoples have been strongly emphasized by economists in 
their discussions of the general question of the origin of the pro- 
ductive process among mankind. Biicher, for example, maintains 
that play is older than work. Technique is acquired in play, he 
says, and is only gradually turned from mere amusement to useful 
employment. In my opinion, this theory is founded on a complete 
misunderstanding of the foundation on which the economic activity 
of primitive man rests. By his bodily constitution man is depen- 
dent on an indirect satisfaction of his wants—that is to say, on 
work—and this of itself settles the question of whether play is 

F 8 I 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


anterior to work. No doubt in man, as in other animals, physical 
power to supply his needs by work is matured and developed by 
play, especially in youth; but, whereas in the case of animals 
bodily capacities are applied exclusively to the direct satisfaction 
of wants, in the case of man they are chiefly applied to indirect 
satisfaction—that is, to work. And work is, for man, as truly one 
of the conditions of existence as direct satisfaction of wants, or the 
mere search for food, is a condition of existence for the animal. 
Therefore, play can no more be anterior to work in the life of man, 
than it can be anterior to the search for food in the life of animals. 
The various forms of play can be divided into three groups : 


(1) Games of imitation. 
(2) Games of movement, such as sports and dancing. 
(3) Games of skill and chance. 


We have already mentioned those games of imitation in which 
children copy the productive activities of their elders. Even among 
primitive peoples there is hardly any form of labour that is not 
imitated by the children, and almost every article of production is 
found in miniature form as a toy. Bows and arrows, clubs, stools, 
earthen vessels, oars, sleeping-mats, baskets, etc., all too diminutive 
to be of practical use, have been found. Children are, of course, 
strongly attracted by anything that is new to them. The children 
of the Paressi Indians took special delight in playing horses, or 
rather mules, when my visit gave them their first opportunity of 
seeing a mounted man. A biggish boy was saddled with a small 
blanket and crawled around on all fours with a smaller boy on his 
back. Such imitative games are sometimes of special interest, 
inasmuch as they keep alive, in the form of toys, articles which are 
no longer used in ordinary life. When I visited the Bakairi Indians 
on the Paranatinga River bows and arrows were still common toys 
with the children, although all grown men had rifles. 

Among many peoples both old and young play imitative games 
which copy the characteristic activities of various animals. The 
Bushmen of South Africa are said to possess outstanding gifts of 
imitation. Ability to imitate the movements and the voices of 
animals, and cleverness in assuming suitable disguises, are econo- 
mically important, because they are useful in hunting, and, therefore, 
it is not always easy to distinguish between play and productive 
activity. And, again, it is sometimes hardly possible to distinguish 


82 


PERSONAL SA i ShAG LION 


these two kinds of activity from the religious ceremonies which 
include dances where the dancers are disguised as animals. 

Some of the games of movement have no connexion with the pro- 
ductive process, because they are carried on without any special 
material aids, and are, therefore, examples of direct satisfaction of 
wants. This is the case with simple competitive wrestling and 
running, and we must include in this category all those dances in 
which there is no special adornment of the dancers, nor any of the 
instruments used in ceremonial dances. 

Of sportive games involving special equipment one of the most 
important and one of the most widespread is the ball game, which 
takes so many forms. The material of which the ball is made and 
the method of play show great variations. The natives of the 
Upper Xingu use a ball made of solid rubber, the Paressi Indians 
use a hollow rubber ball. The Araucans and numerous North 
American Indians play hockey with wooden balls. A ball of 
feathers is used by the Bororo Indians and by many other tribes. 
We may also mention here the small boards, 6 ft. long and 18 in. 
wide, used by the Hawaiian islanders in their surf-swimming. 

We can only allude to the numerous games which go under the 
name of games of skill and chance. Some of them are purely 
children’s games, like the humming-top and small percussion-caps 
and other noisy instruments. Some of them are games for adults. 
The most important, and the commonest, of these involve the use 
of dice, playing-boards, rods, counters, and so on, and presuppose 
all sorts of rules of play. 

This relation between productive activity and playing and 
dancing is repeated in the case of those activities which are the 
outcome of religious conceptions, and which can best be described 
as religious ceremonies. Being the direct satisfaction of religious 
wants, such ceremonies are neither productive nor industrial 
activities. They are pleasurable activities, whether they are 
associated with feelings of pleasure or with feelings of pain, as in 
penances and self-chastisements. Like the satisfaction of the need 
of play, the satisfaction of religious want in most cases involves the 
use of special aids which are themselves the products of economic 
process, and therefore, speaking generally, religious ceremonies are 
consumption activities and represent the final phase of economic 
process, and are themselves economic activities. 

These aids to religious ceremonies are manifold; indeed, many 


83 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


of the most magnificent achievements of mankind have been pro- 
duced for this purpose. At a low stage of civilization religion and 
art are closely connected, and it is just in these aids that art is most 
intensively displayed. This is evident not only in ceremonial 
dress, but also in many of the other auxiliaries used in religious 
ceremonies, and it is very apparent in the place of worship—be it — 
tent or, as at later stages of civilization, temple. How much 
productive work can go to the making of things meant for religious 
use is shown by the economic conditions among the ancient 
Peruvians. One-third of the lands under tillage, as well as a large 
part of the llama herds, was reserved for the priesthood, in order to 
enable them to meet the requirements of their religious office. 
The auxiliaries of religious cultus may be divided into four 

main groups: 

(1) Ceremonial dress. 

(2) Ceremonial utensils and implements. 

(3) A place of worship, a temple. 

(4) Commodities required for sacrificial purposes. 


There are now numerous specimens of ceremonial dress and orna- 
ment in our museums, but most of it is of a kind worn only on 
religious occasions and at the actual celebration of certain ceremonies.. 
The ordinary dress of primitive man, like all the rest of his belong- 
ings, is extremely simple. For religious celebrations he adorns 
himself both by painting his body and by wearing special dress. 
Where the ceremonies are conducted by specially appointed 
functionaries, such as magic-men or regular priests, ceremonial — 
dress often comes to assume the character of a recognized official 
dress. 

Ceremonial dress comes to have a special importance when it is 
used as a disguise, to hide the identity of the wearer, or to give 
him the appearance of a supernatural, demonic being. 

Only the main articles of equipment can be mentioned here. We 
have to distinguish between those used by ordinary worshippers 
and those specially reserved for the use of magic-men or priests. 
An important class of the former kind is that of musical instruments, 
or instruments of noise. These play a prominent part in the cere- 
monies. In many cases the sight of certain instruments and of 
certain disguises is forbidden to the women, and this ordinance is 


so strictly observed by some primitive peoples that any trans- 
84 


PERSONAL SATISFACTION 


gression of it involves the death of the woman concerned. Among 
the Paressi Indians the large trumpet and the flute—the former of 
which represents the male and the latter the female serpent-god— 
are carefully kept in the place of worship, which no woman may 
enter, and when these are used in night celebrations in the centre 
of the village the women are warned by special signs to retire into 
their houses, and the houses are then stringently shut. The com- 
monest and most widespread noise instruments are the rattle and 
the whirr, or ‘bull-roarer.’ 

Next in importance comes the equipment for the ceremonial 
dances. These items are carried in the hand, and those who carry 
them wear mask dress. For the most part this equipment consists 
of articles similar to those used as means of production, such as 
axes, javelins, clubs, fish clubs, wooden mortars, mattocks. The 
only difference is that these articles are specially made for this 
purpose and are usually specially decorated. 

Only brief mention can be made here of the special outfit of the 
priests and magic-men. It includes the ceremonial stool, medicine 
bag, containing medicines and charms, fumigating utensils, and all 
the appurtenances of magic and soothsaying. At a higher stage 
of civilization, when a regular form of worship has been evolved, 
together with an official priesthood, the number of these religious 
articles is gradually increased. They include all the paraphernalia 
of sacrifice, altar, fumigating apparatus, and sacrificial knife. This 
last, like the ancient Mexican flint knife, is made for the purpose 
and has a special shape. 

Another group of ceremonial articles are themselves the objects 
of worship. In a later chapter (p. 200) we shall find that almost 
all natural objects and natural phenomena, from a small pebble up 
to the sun and the constellations, may be the objects of religious 
worship. We are concerned here only with things produced 
by the ordinary productive process as articles of use and as 
pleasurable objects used in the satisfaction of religious wants. The 
close relation which we have already noticed between art and 
religion at a low stage of culture becomes very apparent in the 
manufacture of those articles which are meant to be objects of 
religious worship. In all cases these latter are symbols of religious 
conceptions, and, clumsy and unattractive as they may seem to 
our modern taste, they are always in their own way creations 
of art. 


8 5 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


Such symbols are of three kinds, although it is not always possible 
to draw a clear line of distinction.between them : 


(1) Fetish figures. 
(2) Ancestral figures. 
(3) Representations of the various deities. 


In some cases religious ceremonies are held at any convenient 
place, but sometimes quite definite places are provided, and these 
latter are actually places of worship. They may be in the open air 
at places which are, or which are considered to be, specially suitable 
for worship, because they are sacred places, e.g., groves, caves, or 
sites beneath certain trees. Frequently, however, special places of 
worship are erected, and these may be of many forms, from the 
small hut of primitive tribes up to the temple, or, at a later stage, 
the mosque or the church. Again, the large communal house is in 
some cases used, not only as a place of economic activity and as a 
shelter, but also as a place of worship. The majority of the Rio 
Negro tribes of South America keep the religious masks and other 
equipment in the house itself, and the religious ceremonies are con- 
ducted either there or in the village square in front of the communal 
house. In many other parts of the South American forest area 
there is a special small hut for religious gatherings adjoining the 
house, and this serves both as a lodging for passing male guests 
and as a meeting-place for the male inhabitants of the village. As 
has been already said, the Paressi Indians keep in these huts the 
musical instruments which are looked upon as the embodiments of 
certain serpent demons, so that these huts are the initial stages of 
built places of worship in which actual fetishes, or representations 
of deities, are set up as objects of worship. Even beyond the con- 
fines of Asia and Europe such places of worship may attain an 
added importance, owing to the special sanctity of the images or 
relics which they house. In ancient Peru worshippers came to 
certain places of worship from regions far distant. One such place 
was the Temple-complex, situated on the coast of Peru, which 
contained an image of the chief deity of these regions, the creator 
god Pachacamac. 

We have placed last the appurtenances of sacrifice. We shall 
discuss in a later chapter the meaning of this rite. Here we 
are concerned only with the commodities employed in sacrificial 
ceremonies. It is an important fact that the things offered in 


86 


PERSONAL SATISFACTION 

sacrifice are always things that play a part in ordinary economic 
life. The predominant idea seems to be that the wants of the deities 
coincide in the main with human wants, and therefore men offer to 
their deities mainly those things which are valuable for the satis- 
faction of human wants. Therefore, among tribes that till the soil 
it is principally agricultural products that are offered; among 
peoples who raise cattle it is the products of that industry that men 
offer to the gods. Some scholars have suggested that the origin 
of cattle-breeding and of agriculture are connected with the offering 
of sacrifices or with gifts to the dead, but the true view is that these 
things were offered because, being the products of cattle-breeding 
or agriculture, they represented an economic value. They were 
not first produced for the purpose of being used as sacrificial 
offerings. 

Some sacrifices involve an actual renunciation of the offerings in 
favour of the deities to whom they are given. Food and other 
pleasurable commodities are placed where they will be eaten by the 
deities, or the images of the deities are directly fed. This latter 
process is found in drastic form in Hawaii, where the food is simply 
poured into the open maws of large, wooden idols. In other cases 
the offerings are left for the priests who are responsible for the 
services, or they are destroyed in some way—they are burned or 
sunk in a lake sacred to the deity. 

There are many cases, however, in which the materials offered in 
sacrifice are retained to satisfy the wants of men. They are either 
eaten at a subsequent sacrificial feast held in honour of the deity— 
this is what usually happens with animals killed for sacrifice—or 
they are replaced by votive offerings to the deities, or again, the 
sacrifice is carried through in symbolic form. By this means 
materials may be offered to the gods and yet not withdrawn from 
their original purpose of satisfying human wants. 

Lastly, some mention must be made of those human sacrifices 
frequently found at certain stages of civilization. In many parts of 
the world —e.g., in ancient Dahomey and in Ashanti, and especially 
in ancient Mexico—this practice assumed terrible proportions. Even 
if there is exaggeration in the ancient accounts which declare that 
King Ahuizotl at the dedication of the great teocalli, the temple 
which he had built to the gods, slew 20,000 to 80,000 war captives, 
there must have been huge numbers of human victims sacrificed on 
such occasions in ancient Mexico. 


87 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


At certain stages of civilization human life, even on its economic 
side, is frequently dominated, down to its smallest details, by 
religious ideas, and religious ceremonies occupy a prominent place 
in the lives of such peoples and exercise a powerful influence on 
their economic conditions. In such cases productive and pleasur- 
able activity are closely associated with religious cultus, and this 
cultus sometimes attains such an importance that almost every 
form of economic process is, to some extent and in some way, 
influenced by it. There are religious ceremonies at seed-time, at 
harvest, and when an animal is killed; there are ceremonies con- 
nected with hunting, fishing, trading expeditions, and especially 
before expeditions of war; and even pleasurable activities, like 
eating, playing, and dancing, treatment of the sick and the bestowal 
of the dead, are brought into association with religious ceremonies 
—nay, these themselves may be religious acts. This fact has led 
several scholars to take the view that many economic acts had their 
origin in religious ceremonies of some kind, and that it was only in 
course of time that they ceased to be purely religious and assumed 
an economic character. This view has been put forward in its 
extremest form by Eduard Hahn. He maintains that cattle- 
breeding and agriculture both began in religious ceremonies or death 
customs, and that even important economic implements like 
ploughs and carts were originally connected with religion. In 
reply it must be strongly emphasized that the prominence of 
religious ceremonies is only one aspect of human economy, and 
only became prominent under the influence of comparatively high 
religious views of the world. It could, of course, be transferred, 
along with other influences of civilization, to more primitive peoples. 
This retroactive effect of religious ideas which were born at a higher 
stage of civilization must be kept in view in estimating the con- 
ditions of life among primitive tribes. There can be no question 
of any steady, uninterrupted progress of evolution in this regard, 
nor is it possible to maintain that the economic life of mankind in 
its initial stages consisted mainly of religious observances. 


88 


SECTIONS 


VOLUNTARY HUMAN ACTIVITIES AS AFFECTED 
BY NATURAL ENVIRONMENT 


CHAPTER?! 
THE PROBLEM OF MAN’S RELATION TO NATURE! 


HE problem of man’s relation to nature has long been 
discussed ; indeed, it was being discussed long before 
_ methodical study of the relevant facts had prepared the way 
for its solution. While some thinkers attributed all differences 
among men to differences in talents and gifts, others asserted that 
man was simply the product of his natural environment. The 
general question of the relation of man to his natural environment 
was first raised by the speculative sciences. Herder put the question 
on a broader basis, and since he wrote the problem has been taken 
up by many other sciences. Herder’s [deen was adopted by the 
French Positivists, and by philosophers like Taine and Herbert 
Spencer, and others. Auguste Comte, the founder of modern 
Positivism, introduced the doctrine of the influence of external 
nature on man, and especially on his social development, into 
the science of sociology, and the problem was then taken up 
by: the science of history, especially in its application to the 
history of single peoples. But, seeing that no real attempts have 
been made, either then or since, to make an exact study of the 
facts and to investigate the actual influence of nature on man 
speculative science has done little to help in the solution of this 
problem. 

Natural science had long recognized the enormous influence of 
nature on the history of the evolution of organisms, About the 
middle of the nineteenth century Darwin brought forward his theory 
of descent, and twenty or thirty years earlier Jean de Lamarck 

1 Literature: Ratzel, Anthropogeographie, I and II; Karl Ritter, Die Erd- 
kunde im Verhdltnis zur Natur und zur Geschichte des Menschen (Berlin,1817) ; 


Uber das historische Element in der geographischen Wissenschaft (1833) ; Ernst 
Kapp, Philosophische Evdkunde (Braunschweig, 1845). 
89 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


had published his theory of transformism—1.e., the doctrine of 
the transformation of organic forms by the conditions of life. 
But as both Darwin and Lamarck had based their work mainly on 
a study of animals and plants under domestication, and had simply 
carried over their results, first to the sphere of animals and plants 
in general, and then to mankind, natural science did not at first 
subject the question of man’s relation to nature to a systematic 
study. The scholars concerned had overlooked the fact that, 
owing to man’s indirect satisfaction of his wants, his relation to 
natural environment is quite different from that of all other living 
beings. Considering the strong influence that the theory of 
evolution, although mainly based on zoological study, has had all 
along on ethnology, it is not surprising that this latter science was 
content to accept the inferences of that theory as valid and looked 
upon the influence of nature on man as an ascertained fact, without 
examining or testing itforitself. Inthis way the thorough examina- 
tion of the relation of nature to man was reserved for geography. 
Karl Ritter was the first to point out the desirability of testing 
the theory of evolution by an actual study of the facts. It was he 
who directed the study of the problem into inductive paths. But 
neither he nor his pupils, of whom Ernst Kapp was the most dis- 
tinguished, actually undertook this task. It was first undertaken 
by Friedrich Ratzel, and this great ethnologist made the study 
of the influence of nature on man a separate branch of general 
geography, under the name of anthropo-geography. 

There is a twofold relation between human activities and natural 
environment. In the first place it is man’s natural environment 
that supplies him with the raw material he requires for the satis- 
faction of his wants ; in the second place, it forms the scene of the 
activities that are directed toward that satisfaction. 

These two aspects of this relation are closely connected, because 
the formation and production of the raw materials that man can 
use are affected by the same influences, e.g., heat and moisture, 
which are directly important for human life; but it is better to 
take them separately, because when we proceed from lower to higher 
stages of culture, where the means of transport and communication 
become more perfect, the two tend to become more independent of 
each other. 

Of all the materials required by man, there is not one which 
nature continuously and everywhere supplies in a form adequate to 


go 


WEAN Sr REUVASIONSLOSNALURE 


support life. This is true even of the air. The highest elevations 
on the earth’s surface, e.g., the Andes and the mountains of Central 
Asia, rise up to strata of the air where there is no longer sufficient 
oxygen. Breathing is difficult, and the climber ultimately falls a 
victim to ‘mountain sickness.’ 

Seeing that the air is the only material which both animal and 
man can use for the direct satisfaction of wants, a lengthy stay in 
such elevated regions is impossible. It is true that such boundary 
lines are being gradually driven back. Man’s body can to some 
-extent adapt itself even to the lack of oxygen, and it is said that 
the inhabitants of the plateaux of Peru have an unusually broad 
thorax. 

A second natural material which is indispensable for human 
existence is water—fresh water as opposed to sea-water. While at 
certain places and at certain times it is so abundant that it is not 
included among the things whose value is assessed, at other places 
and at other seasons water is of the highest value and necessitates 
all sorts of measures to secure it. This variability in the amount of 
water at man’s disposal from time to time has all along been highly 
important for human development. 

It is an important fact that the distribution of the useful minerals 
and metals over the earth is almost independent of climatic con- 
ditions. Gold is found in nearly all climes, and silver is found in 
the most desolate territories—deserts and highlands, like the Andes 
and the desert of Atacama; and iron ores are found practically 
everywhere. The very circumstance that the useful minerals and 
metals most desired by men are scattered indiscriminately over the 
surface of the world, and yet are found only in limited areas, has 
contributed much to the development of human intercourse. Thus, 
owing to their local distribution, the mineral salts have always 
played an important part in the trade life of mankind. Many 
important kinds of stone occur only in limited regions. Obsidian, 
so important for edged tools because of its hardness and brittle- 
ness, is only found in certain volcanic regions. Pipestone, a 
popular material among North American Indians for tobacco- 
pipe heads, is confined to a few places in North America; and 
nephrite, valued for its hardness, is found in very few districts. 
It is a specially important fact that some valuable kinds of 
stone and metal are found in places which are destitute of 
other natural materials required by man. In order to make 


OI 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


these natural treasures available, many prerequisites—social and 
cultural—are necessary. 

Very important also for man’s economic life are those loose 
masses which at most places on the earth’s surface cover the solid 
stone core with a layer of varying thickness, and which geologists | 
call ‘deposit,’ or ‘débris.’ Seeing that all plant life—at least all that 
grows on terra firma—is dependent on this fertile layer of earth, this 
layer is indispensable for the plant food of mankind. The only 
exceptions are a few seaweeds which, for lack of other vegetable 
food, are eaten by the Eskimo. The nature of the soil becomes 
especially important when man begins to interfere with the struggle 
for existence that goes on in the vegetable world, and provides what 
certain plants need for their growth, or diverts their development 
into paths that serve his purposes—in other words, when he tills 
the ground. The main difficulty in providing a suitable soil for 
what he wishes to grow is the fact that all the soil suitable for culti- 
vation is usually covered by nature with luxuriant vegetation—in 
the tropics with dense forest and jungle. Where there is no such 
natural vegetation the natural conditions are such that, for one 
reason or another—lack of water, superabundance of water, infer- 
tility of the soil—the soil is unsuitable for vegetation, and is a fortiori 
still more unsuitable for domesticated plants whose demands are 
greater. The various means by which man endeavours to overcome 
such difficulties will be dealt with when we come to speak of tillage. 

An important part in economic life is played by some argillaceous 
earths, or clays, which provide material for pottery and bricks for 
building purposes. The usefulness of earthenware depends largely 
on the composition of the raw material available. Besides these 
clays, there are various colour-earths, some of which are found only 
here and there, and long journeys must be undertaken to procure 
them. 

There are comparatively few wild plants which provide material 
that man can use for the direct satisfaction of his wants, 7.e., without 
previous preparation. Apart from a few species of fruits, there are 
really only a few sap-yielding plants, which in dry regions provide 
some substitute for water. It is these alone that make it possible 
for man to penetrate these dry regions. On the other hand, there 
is a great variety of growing things which supply man with raw 
material which he can use for the indirect satisfaction of his wants. 
Indeed, most plants, including those that are poisonous, can be thus 


92 


MAN’S RELATION. TO \NATURE 


used in one way oranother. Poisonous plants are occasionally very 
useful. They provide poison for arrows, medicines, and even, as in 
the case of Mandtioca brava, the chief food throughout large areas. 
The fact that the ash left after the burning of vegetable growths 
and the matter produced by their decomposition are good agents 
for improving the soil, and the further fact that the timber of trees 
and bushes provides a valuable fuel, are sufficient to suggest how 
extremely useful vegetation can be to man. 

Compared with the large number of plants which can thus in 
some way be utilized by man, there are very few actual food plants. 
The tropical forest is extremely poor in plants of this kind. Only 
the treeless plain, the steppe, supplies them in any quantity. There 
nature seeks to store up food materials in the perennial parts of 
plants, ¢.g., in roots, bulbs, or tubers, in order to rescue the plants 
themselves from destruction. Thus, so far as the possibility of 
obtaining vegetable food is concerned, if man were dependent for 
food on wild plants, the steppe would be the most suitable place 
for human life, in spite of all its other disadvantages and in spite 
of the great distances over which the food-bearing plants are 
but thinly distributed. Asa matter of fact, nature has endowed 
several of these food plants of the steppe with a special capacity 
for acclimatization, so that, after suitable conditions have been 
provided for them, they can be transplanted into other kinds of soil 
and into other climates. Besides, many of these same plants 
possess a great organic power of adaptation to their new way of life, 
and this makes it possible to guide this power along certain lines, 
so as to improve those qualities that render them more useful to 
man. The plant is thus improved and becomes a domesticated 
plant. Maize is an example of a plant of this kind possessing great 
powers of acclimatization and adaptation. It is a native of the 
torrid zone, but it can be and is grown in North America as far as 
51° latitude, which is almost the farthest limit of fruit-culture. The 
well-known Cuzco maize is even grown at a height of 3500 metres 
above sea-level, in a region where there is only four months’ 
summer. In addition to this remarkable power of adaptation, it 
also possesses great variability. At the present time more than 
300 varieties of it have been classified, and some of these differ 
more from one another than the varieties of any other species of 
grain. 

These capabilities of being easily improved and acclimatized are 


93 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


very variously distributed in the vegetable world. The natural 
qualities of wild vegetation are of decisive importance for agri- 
culture, because they determine whether it is possible to bring the 
plants under domestication. Practically all the useful plants whose 
capacity for adaptation and variation render them suitable for 
artificial cultivation have already been long cultivated by man, and 
it is very seldom that we can now see the transition of a wild species 
into a cultivated plant actually taking place. Some experiments 
have been made in modern times with the systematic cultivation 
of the rubber-tree and the mate-shrub in Paraguay; but of actual 
food plants hardly a new species has been cultivated within his- 
torical time. And even the most important domesticated plants 
which have come to us from America had already been previously 
domesticated by the natives. 

The direct satisfaction of human wants in the matter of animal 
stuffs is even rarer than in the case of the vegetable world. One 
reason is that most animals excel man in powers of locomotion, 
so that it is only indirectly and by employing special means, that 
man can catch them. Apart from eggs and some small creatures 
like the larve of beetles, ants, locusts, and shellfish, which can 
simply be gathered, man can only catch animals without the em- 
ployment of special means when they have betaken themselves 
too far from their own element, as in the case of turtles, which 
crawl upon sandbanks to lay their eggs, or fish that have been left 
stranded in the shallows of receding water. Another reason for 
the rarity of direct satisfaction of wants in the case of animal 
materials is that in by far the majority of cases these require 
preliminary preparation to render them suitable for the supply = 
human wants. 

With few exceptions, such as seaweed and a few tuberous, aquatic 
plants (in China), man is restricted to dry land in his efforts to 
procure vegetable material. But there are many regions where the 
largest amount of animal food is taken from the water. To the 
forest Indians of Brazil the supply of aquatic animals is far more 
important than that of land animals. In the polar regions, where 
for the most of the year the land is covered with ice and snow, the 
sea is almost the only source of animal food. And it is only for a 
short part of the year that the Eskimo can hunt the musk-ox or the 
reindeer or the birds that resort to these high latitudes. They are 
for the most part restricted to the hunting of whales and seals, and 


94 


MAN’S RELATION TO NATURE 


to the catching of crabs and shell-fish. As the sphere of distri- 
bution of aquatic animals extends polewards far beyond the limits 
of even the scantiest vegetable growths, and as there is an extensive 
fauna in the regions around the Arctic Ocean, where vegetation 
comes to an end in a few mosses and lichens, this absence of vege- 
table food sets the boundary to human life on any large scale in the 
North. 

We shall return in a later chapter to the part played by animals 
in the domesticated state. Meantime, it may be said that com- 
paratively few animals are fitted for such close association with 
man that he is able to affect their powers of adaptation to varying 
conditions and breed from one species numerous varieties to suit 
his own purposes. Asa matter of fact, in the course of long periods, 
very few new species of domestic animal have been added to those 
already existing, and in the majority of cases it is impossible to say 
with certainty whence they originated. 

Turning now to the effects of climate on human activities, 
we have first to point out that, when we speak of climate, we 
are dealing with a strict meteorological conception. The word 
‘climate,’ which means literally ‘inclination,’ 7.e., the inclination of 
the celestial equator toward the horizon, is used to denote the mean 
condition of the surrounding atmosphere peculiar to any place on 
the surface of the globe. This mean condition is determined, 
first, by the temperature of the lower strata of the air, and, 
secondly, by the degree of moisture they contain, the form and 
quantity of their precipitations, and their distribution throughout 
the year. This climatic quality of a place is affected, on the 
one hand, by the intensity and the yearly alternation of solar 
irradiation (solar or mathematical climate), and, on the other 
hand, by the distribution of land and water, by the altitude of 
the place, and by its exposure in respect of the prevailing winds 
(physical climate). 

Seeing that the growth of plants and animals is greatly influenced 
by climate, climate has an indirect effect on all human activities 
that are concerned with the production of vegetable and animal 
raw materials, But there are also’many important respects in 
which climate affects man directly. The great importance of heat 
and moisture for mankind is clearly seen in the large number of 
commodities which man needs in order to produce them artificially. 
Apart from the latest achievements of European civilization, man 


95 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


can do nothing to alter the composition of the air he breathes, but, 
on the other hand, he has made use of all sorts of means to impart 
to the air around him the amount of heat and dryness which he finds 
suitable. Asa result of these artificial means of modifying climatic 
effects—such as the use of fire to warm the air around him, or the 
use of protective shelter or protective clothing to exclude cold air 
or moisture—man is in a position to withstand any climate in the 
whole world. The regions still inhabited by human beings include 
both the coldest and the hottest places in the world. Werchojansk, 
the place where the lowest temperatures are recorded, is to this 
day an important city in Siberia, with a mean January temperature 
of 50° below zero ; and Massowah, which is situated in one of the 
hottest regions of the world, is the capital of the Italian colony of 
Eritrea. It is entirely owing to his ability to modify by artificial 
means the effects of climate on his organism and on his possessions 
that man can spread himself over almost the whole world. But 
this ability lies in his power of adapting his external conditions to 
the climate, not, as in the case of animals, in adapting his own 
organism to the climate. Without these artificial means, man 
would, for purely climatic reasons and apart altogether from con- 
sideration of the natural materials which he requires for his existence 
in view of the organism with which he has been endowed, be ex- 
cluded from inhabiting more than a very small part of the earth’s 
surface. 

Again, human activities are affected in a very large number of 
ways by the varying forms of the surface of the earth. Indeed, 
there is a close connexion between many of the natural limitations 
of which we have already spoken and the heights and depths of 
the earth’s surface, climatic conditions, and the distribution of 
animals and plants that man can use. At this stage we are con- 
cerned only with the direct effects of these conditions of the earth’s 
surface, especially those that affect the accessibility of a place 
and thus determine the possibilities of human movement and 
intercourse. 

One of the main respects in which the character of the earth’s 
surface and difference of altitude are specially important is that 
they determine the boundaries between land and water. If man 
had no means of traversing water surfaces his physical equipment 
would restrict him to contiguous land areas. All territory separated 
by large stretches of water from the land in which he originated 


96 


PLATE 15 











ARTIFICIAL PLANTATION-MOUND OF GUATO INDIANS 


South America. [See p. 108] 
Photo Author 








FLOATING GARDENS (CHINAMPAS) IN MEXICO 96 
Central America 


From a photograph in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin. [See p. 109] 


bee tg MS cit oval cscs Ik & 
, [111 *¢ aS] ‘eorauTy YyQNOS 
(SNVIGN] ISSHUVq) SNOILVINVIg SOINVI YOT ONINVAIO-LSANO 





91 ALV Id 


MAN’S RELATION TO NATURE 


would remain closed to him; nor would he be able to obtain the 
raw materials which he gets from the sea by means of navigation— 
and, in many regions, these constitute the greatest part of the raw 
materials available for supplying his needs. It is navigation that 
enables man to traverse the stretches of water that divide land from 
land and to utilize the materials they contain. In the course of 
his development, indeed, the original relation between land and 
water in respect of communication has been actually reversed, and 
water surfaces have become in many cases the main highways of 
communication in regions inaccessible in any other way. 

But it is not only as a channel of communication that water 
surfaces have come to be of service to man. In many regions they 
are his place of abode—temporary or permanent. Some tribes, like 
the Guato of Central Brazil, spend a great part of their lives in 
their boats onthe water. The Arrua and the Paumari on the Purus 
build their dwellings on rafts on the river. In China a not incon- 
siderable part of the population live on broad rafts or in old boats. 
Even at the present day, in many parts of the world, pile-dwellings 
are built over water stretches, especially in the Malayan Archipelago 
and in Melanesia, in tropical Africaandin America. This is another 
example of how man can artificially enlarge the sphere where life 
is possible for him. 

It is only when man thus succeeds in utilizing expanses of water, 
and even the sea itself, as a means for the indirect satisfaction of his 
wants that the boundary between land and sea loses the significance 
it would otherwise have as a mere restriction of the theatre of human 
life. With the development of traffic by water, stretches of water 
begin to be means of communication, and it depends on the course 
followed by the boundary edge, which we call the coast, whether it 
will be a hindrance or a help to traffic. 

The configuration of the earth’s surface is important in another 
way. According as it is of a kind that promotes or prevents inter- 
communication, it determines whether definite roads of communi- 
cation are possible. Communication between extensive plains is 
sometimes restricted to a few passes through the mountains that 
separate them, and large parts of entire continents become available 
for traffic owing to the existence of mighty navigable rivers like the 
Amazon and La Plata. 

The favourable or unfavourable effects of the varied configuration 
of the earth’s surface on human activities make themselves felt in 


G: 97 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


many ways. On the one hand, it is this configuration that deter- 
mines the possibility of the spread of mankind, physically, socially, 
and culturally ; on it also depends the possibility of exchange of 
commodities and of division of labour. On the other hand, those 
features that are unfavourable to intercommunication constitute 
an important natural protection for weaker groups of men against 
stronger groups. 

We have already seen that the animal and vegetable worlds supply 
a large part of man’s needs, and, further, that there are several 
species of animals and plants which are suitable for being domesti- 
cated or artificially raised. At present we are dealing with animals 
and plants only in as far as they form part of man’s natural environ- 
ment; but even in that aspect they exercise in many ways great 
influence on his conditions of life. 

In the first place, many living creatures are a direct danger to 
man’s life or well-being. Among the large vertebrate animals there 
are many for which man, without artificial aids, is no match in open 
combat, and from which he could not escape by flight. Without 
any doubt, the necessity of warding off these beasts of prey which 
surpass man in physical strength has decisive effects on his manner 
of life. It determines, for example, his weapons, the site and 
arrangement of his dwelling-place, and also the social conditions 
which are connected with these protective measures. 

Nor must we underrate the part played by the vegetable and 
animal parasites, which penetrate or attach themselves to the 
human organism, and live at its expense. The most dangerous of 
these are the invisible disease germs, which live and multiply 
within the human organism, and, seeing that they may be conveyed 
from one individual to another, render large tracts of the earth 
almost uninhabitable. While it is true that man outside the 
civilization of Europe and Asia is ignorant of the real cause of 
these infectious diseases, still he makes use of various more or less 
efficacious preventive measures against them. 

Among the parasites which are perceptible to the naked eye there 
are various parasitic worms and a large number of very troublesome 
insects. Many human arrangements are dictated by the necessity 
of defensive measures against these. The mosquito pest, which 
attains such proportions in tropical Africa, is a source of serious 
trouble even to the natives of these regions. The solid construc- 
tion of the native houses, the continual fire on their hearths, the 


98 


MAN’S RELATION TO NATURE 


mosquito-whisk and mosquito-net, the need of clothing even in 
countries of high temperatures, the smearing and painting of their 
bodies, are all in great measure the result of the presence of mos- 
quitoes and other insects. The presence of lice also is largely 
responsible for the treatment of the hair with fat or lime and for 
the use of combs. 

In addition to these direct effects on the human organism, the 
animal and vegetable worlds affect human life conditions in another 
way. They intensify the universal struggle for existence by com- 
peting with man for the same materials of life and thus diminishing 
the available supply of the things he needs. Nor is this all. The 
commodities he wins from nature or transforms for his own use 
are also exposed to the depredations of these injurious animals. 
Swarms of locusts attack his crops and meadowlands, and in a brief 
space destroy the economic equipoise. The travelling ants, the 
leaf-cutting ants, wood worms, boring beetles, grain worms, which 
in many places make it difficult to store grain, the bacteria of 
decomposition, which threaten his stores of organic materials, all 
these are forms of attack to which man is exposed and which compel 
him to take strong measures to protect himself. 

Once more, wild vegetation is frequently a great obstacle to 
human undertakings. After man has prepared the ground for his 
own purposes, wild vegetation springs up with redoubled luxuriance 
and threatens to choke his crops. Every stretch of ground which 
might bear rich crops is overgrown by rank vegetation—in the 
tropics mostly forest and jungle—and this must first be laboriously 
cleared before it is possible to plant any crop whatever. There are 
regions in Central America where the natives prefer to grow their 
maize on ground of low fertility, because on more fertile soil they 
are unable to cope with the quick-growing weeds. Again, the 
vegetable world frequently renders whole regions inaccessible. The 
natural waterways—river and lake—are obstructed by aquatic 
growths; bush and forest render movement difficult and slow, 
because numerous plants are equipped with thorns and prickles. 
In such regions roads are a prerequisite to intercommunication, 
and these have to be made by man through this rank and trouble- 
some vegetation. 

Over against all these disadvantages, however, we must set the 
numerous undoubted advantages which man derives from the 
presence of plants and animals in the world in which he lives. In 


99 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


hot lands the shade afforded by vegetation is very important. The 
trees protect his crops not only from the burning rays of the sun, 
but also from the wind. The forest and jungle form an almost 
impassable barrier against hostile attack, as well as against civilizing 
influences which, if the way were more open, would penetrate his 
country and destroy all too quickly the native qualities. Forest 
and jungle also serve to conceal the hunter from view as he stealthily 
stalks his prey 

Even more helpful relations than these exist between man and 
the animal world. Striking illustration of this is found in the part 
played by animals in the myths and general conceptions of native 
races. Many animals aid man by destroying the vegetable and 
animal pests that injure him and his belongings. Indeed, there has 
come to be a kind of symbiosis between man and many of the 
animals. Myths frequently enlarge on the ways in which animals 
have been helpful to man, but there are also numerous examples of 
animals, other than those that have been domesticated, being 
utilized for man’s purposes. In Eastern Asia cormorants catch fish 
for him; in Cuba tortoises do the same, and falcons are utilized 
to secure herons. 

To all appearance, man has learnt many of his activities directly 
from animals. Many animal parts are used by man as tools in the 
same manner in which animals themselves use them. For example, 
he employs the great claws of the armadillo as digging tools, and 
the sharp teeth of the piranha fish as cutting instruments. 

Thus far, we have been considering the influences exerted by 
nature on man merely from a static point of view, but great im- 
portance attaches also to the various ways in which nature can 
be changed. Unlike most animals, the human organism cannot 
adapt itself to the changes of nature, either physically or physio- 
logically. When winter approaches many animals change their 
hair or their plumage. Others have an organism adapted for 
hibernation. In the majority of cases the propagation of the 
species is restricted to the seasons that are most favourable 
for that purpose. In the case of man it is entirely different, 
and he is obliged to meet the changes of nature by various 
artifices designed to secure indirectly the Arians of his life 
and well-being. 

There are two ways in which changes may be Decent about in 
man’s natural environment. On the one hand, man can change his 
100 


INUAUN Go 0 REE AS LO Nei Os eN ATED RE, 


place of residence and enter into a different natural environment ; 
on the other, his environment itself may change: This latter case 
may take place in four different ways. First, the changes may take 
the form of sudden, unforeseen events, like earthquakes, volcanic 
eruptions, sudden inundations, or floods. Secondly (and these are 
probably the most important for human life), there are the periodic 
changes of day and night and season. Thirdly, the gradual geo- 
logical and morphological shiftings in the earth’s surface. Fourthly, 
the results produced on the earth by man’s own activities. We 
cannot dwell here on these questions, closely related as they are to 
the history of human development, and constituting, as they do, 
some of the most important problems of ethnology. 


IOI 


GHAPTER Il 
THE MATERIAL ECONOMY 


Y the word ‘economy’ we mean all those arrangements and 
Bree which have in view the indirect satisfaction of 

wants, 7.e., those processes which seek to supply man with 
the things he needs. But, over against these economic activities 
which seek to provide for the indirect satisfaction of wants, there 
are non-economic activities which bring direct satisfaction— 
activities which are common to man and to animals. 

Looked at from its material side, 7.e., as dependent on natural 
environment, this process of the indirect satisfaction of wants 
constitutes the material economy of human life; looked at 
from its social side, 7.e., as influenced by man’s fellow-men, it con- 
stitutes the social economy of human life. The material economy 
thus comprises the production of commodities in the technical 
sense. 

Production of commodities may be of four kinds: 

I. Primitive production—simple gathering or collecting of 
materials supplied by nature, tilling of the soil, cattle-breeding, 
and activities of that kind. 7 

2. Transformation of materials, or industrial production—the 
transformation of materials provided by nature, or of materials 
previously treated. 

3. Transport of commodities. 

4. The preservation of commodities—keeping them in a condition 
fit for use. 

Man alone can be the agent in the technical process of production 
of commodities. In virtue of his equipment with hands and brain, 
he is the only living creature who produces commodities by labour. 
The activity of the domestic animals used by man in this process 
is never consciously aimed at indirect satisfaction of wants, and 
therefore these animals can never rank as agents of production. So 
far as the human process of production is concerned, they are 
never more than mere instruments of production, even although, 


as in the case of the horse in the stable, their wants can only be 
102 


Le MATERIAL CECONOM:Y 


satished by commodities that have resulted from the productive 
process. 

Three things are absolutely indispensable to any possible pro- 
duction—(I) an area of suitable soil, (2) the necessary labour 
power, (3) the possibility of procuring the requisite material means 
of production. 

When we come in a later chapter to deal with the social economy 
we shall enter in greater detail into the prerequisites of production 
and the problems connected with them. Here it is only their 
material aspect that concerns us. With regard to the soil, in this 
material aspect, the properties which it must possess before it can 
be a suitable prerequisite for production may vary greatly both 
qualitatively and quantitatively, according to the form and the kind 
of production in question. In the case of hunting, or in that kind 
of primitive production that consists merely in gathering or col- 
lecting, larger areas are essential than in the case of tillage; and 
similarly each different kind of tillage calls for special qualities in 
the soil. 

In order to appreciate the importance of the second prerequisite 
of production, a sufficiency of available labour, we must first be 
clear in our minds as to how much labour is needed to supply the 
wants of primitive men. Erroneous views are still current on this 
subject. Some modern writers seem to be of opinion that primitive 
peoples can find with little or no effort all that they need, and they 
declare that the work required of the men falls far below that which 
is demanded of the women. It seems to be almost universally 
thought that most of the agricultural labour falls upon the women. 
Even Eduard Hahn rates very low the amount of labour required 
—it is exclusively male work—in clearing the forest-land. In his 
book, Das Alter der wirthschaftlichen Kultur der Menschheit (p. 33) 
he says: “‘It is only occasionally that this labour calls for great 
exertion, and it is not without its attractions. It is not lonely 
work; many are engaged in it together—indeed, it has in some 
ways a festive character. What is more, it is a work of destruction, 
a kind of work in which man takes delight.”’ Anyone who has seen 
the large stretches of forest which have been cleared by the forest 
Indians ef South America with their primitive stone axes will be 
astounded at the enormous expenditure of human labour involved. 
It is, in fact, in work of this kind that we can most easily see the 
amount of labour actually expended, because it is work of this kind 

103 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


that leaves the clearest traces behind it. But the other branches 
of primitive production—the transformation and transport and 
preservation of commodities—also make great demands on the 
labour of native peoples, in order to make steady provision for the 
support of life. We must also take into account the circumstances 
and conditions under which native peoples have to work, the heat 
and the cold, rain and drought, hunger and thirst, long marches, 
vermin, and so on. 

The question of how far the material means of production are to 
be considered as separate prerequisites of production—in spite of 
the fact that, like all commodities, they have their origin in the 
materials supplied by nature conjoined with human labour—will 
be discussed in the section on the social economy (p. 175). Only 
brief reference can be made here to the special position occupied by 
cultivated plants and domesticated animals. Their special position 
among the other materials supplied by nature is due to the fact that 
these plants and animals represent new forms, the results of human 
interference with natural conditions, and they have thus come to 
form an entirely separate class of means of production. 

Seeing that production signifies the creation of the material 
means for the indirect satisfaction of wants, these material means, 
usually called in one word commodities, are the object of production, 
the things produced. As important problems are involved in the 
definition of ‘commodity,’ it is absolutely necessary to make quite 
clear what we mean by it. In my Grundriss der ethnologischen 
V olkswirtschaftslehre I have explained that by commodities we 
mean all those separate parts of nature which form independent 
units apart by themselves, and which are used as means for the 
indirect satisfaction of wants. According to this definition, the 
soil, as such, is not a commodity, because it does not in its entirety 
minister to the indirect satisfaction of wants. The name ‘com- 
modity’ would be more properly applied to such portions of the 
soil as in their entirety are the object of the human economic 
process, and which might be called ‘plots of land.’ And seeing that 
man himself can be the subject of barter, or, as happens in parts of 
Africa, be used as a general measure of value, as money, or be killed 
for the sake of his flesh or of his scalp as a trophy of victory, and 
be thus a means of indirect satisfaction of wants, he also can be a 
‘commodity’ and an article of production. 

Turning now to the various kinds of commodities, and following 
104 


OED. VAR WEA © ONO MY 


the legal classification into things movable and immovable, we must 
first distinguish between immovable and movable commodities. 
We mean by the former ‘plots’ of land with their appurtenances, 
such as permanent houses, terraces, water-supply, and by the latter 
those commodities which can be transported from place to place. 
We have already had occasion to refer to two other distinctions. 
We have spoken of productive goods and pleasurable goods and of 
consumption goods and goods for use. We shall now combine 
these two principles of classification, and we thus obtain the fol- 
lowing fourfold classification of commodities : 


(1) Pleasurable-consumption goods, e.g., food ready for use. 
(2) Productive-consumption goods—all raw materials. 

(3) Pleasurable goods for use, e.g., clothing and ornament. 
(4) Productive goods for use, e.g., a loom. 


This fourfold classification of commodities becomes very impor- 
tant in connexion with the relation between the form and the 
purpose of commodities. In the case of consumption goods their 
shape or form, generally speaking, is of little moment, because their 
purpose implies the destruction of their form, and their form 1s, 
therefore, usually the simple result of the process of their production. 
But, in the case of goods for use, the shape of the commodity has an 
essential connexion with the purpose for which it was made. A 
serviceable classification based on outward form is therefore possible 
only in the case of goods for use, and in view of the reciprocal 
connexion between the form and the purpose of such goods a 
classification based on outward form is also a classification based 
on purpose. 

There are two main groups of these goods for use, differing both 
in form and purpose: (1) those of a wrapping, containing, or pro- 
tecting character, and (2) those whose purpose is to pierce into, 
or break up, or even destroy other things. For want of better 
names, we shall meantime call these two kinds of goods for use 
‘containers’ and ‘disintegrators.’ 1 

A feature common to all ‘container’ goods for use is that they in 
one way or another shut off man or his belongings from the external 
world. A roof, protecting man or his possessions from the weather, 
would be one example. A layer of anything that separates man 


1 Schmidt’s terms are stofferhaltende and _ stofftrennende Gebrauchsgiiter.— 
TRANSLATOR. 


105 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


or his possessions from the earth would be another example—a 
sleeping mat, a hammock, a bridge, a sledge, a boat or other means of 
transport, or any vessel for holding liquids or other easily separable 
materials, baskets or receptacles of all kinds. It depends on the 
nature of the material in the receptacle whether it must have 
higher or lower sides. Other articles of this class are used to effect 
lateral separation or protection—things like clothing and ornament, 
the various forms of defensive armour, a coat of mail, a shield, 
masks and disguises, hunting-screens, etc. 

The second group of goods for use, the ‘disintegrators,’ has two 
subdivisions: (1) those whose chief function it is to make good 
man’s defective locomotion activity, and (2) those which increase 
or add to the strength of human limbs or organs. To the former 
class belong all the instruments or tools intended to take effect at 
a distance, slings, javelins, bows and arrows ; and the second class 
includes all striking and hammering tools, all tools for boring, 
pressing, cutting, filing, etc. 

A remarkable feature in this classification is that the two classes 
of goods for use are frequently found paired together, as it were, in 
the productive process, e.g., the mortar and the pestle, the boat and 
the oar. These ‘pairs’ must not be confused with composite goods 
for use. The difference between them is that in the composite 
goods the separate parts are not independent entities. Examples 
of such composite goods are dart and thrower, bow and arrow, 
sling and stone, etc. 

That form of productive activity which aims at the provision of 
raw material is called primitive production. There are three kinds 
of it, according as the raw material is obtained (1) from the vege- 
table world, (2) from the animal world, or (3) from inanimate 
nature, 

Raw materials are obtained from the vegetable world by two 
methods, gathering and tillage. In the former man searches for 
and gathers the materials at the place where nature provides 
them ; in the latter he seeks to rear cultivated plants and to pro- 
mote their growth by interfering with the natural conditions of the 
soil. 

Among primitive peoples these two methods of primary pro- 
duction are frequently found existing side by side. Even those 
primitive peoples who carry on tillage usually employ the method 
of gathering to procure the raw materials which are not used for 
106 


THE MATERIAL ECONOMY 


food, e.g., timber, textile fibres, etc. The two methods are so 
frequently found together that a distinction between races based 
on these two types of economy would hardly serve any useful 
purpose, especially as both methods are found in developed and 
undeveloped forms. Besides, there are numerous transition forms 
of both methods, so that it is sometimes not easy to say where the 
one ends and the other begins. The North American Indian, it is 
true, puts the seed of wild rice into lakes and swamps where this 
plant has never grown before, and thus artificially increases the 
area of its distribution; but this can hardly be called ‘tillage,’ 
because the rice thus sown in a new place is left to itself and con- 
tinues to grow wild. We can only speak of tillage when actual 
changes are wrought on the soil that is to be planted, 7.e., when the 
soil is treated for the express purpose of improving the conditions 
in favour of the plant that is to be grown. It is only when this is 
done that the wild plant becomes a cultivated plant. We have, on 
the other hand, the beginnings of actual tillage when the Indians in 
these rice districts weed out other growths that spring up among the 
rice and retard its progress. 

By the process of gathering, vegetable raw materials are obtained 
from wild plants. The things gathered may be any part of the 
plants—the fruits, the fruit seeds, the farinaceous bulbs or tubers 
of certain plants, to be used as food, the wood of trees, to be used as 
fuel or as raw material for the manufacture of goods for use, the 
bark of trees for boats, leaves and stalks for roofing purposes or 
for basketry, threads and strings of all kinds, fruit-cases for use as 
receptables, resin, the sap of rubber and oils, various dyestuffs, 
and even flowers, seeds, and fruits for decorative purposes. The 
process itself may take many forms. Perhaps the simplest form 
is that in which certain species of animals which lay up a store of 
vegetable food are robbed of their stores, as when the Bushmen 
collect the grain that has been gathered by certain species of ants. 
We find a somewhat highly developed form of it in the manner in 
which the North American Indians obtain wild rice. At a given 
time before the rice is ripe the stalks are raked together with a 
stick bent into sickle form and tied together in bundles. When the 
grain is ripe the Indians go in boats and, with their hands or with 
sticks, beat these bunches so that the rice grains fall into the boats. 
We have already mentioned that these Indians sow rice on swampy 
ground where it has not previously grown. 

107 


THE PRIMIGCLYE *RA CES (© ain Nie 


Notwithstanding all this variety of method, this gathering process 
has given rise to very few means of production. The only tool of 
any importance in general use is the ‘digging stick.’ It is a fairly 
large, pointed, flat stick and is used for all sorts of purposes—for 
digging up roots or striking down tree-fruit. 

Tillage may be briefly defined as the raising of cultivated plants 
by means of artificial interference with the natural conditions of the 
soil for the purpose of promoting their growth. It is better to 
avoid in this connexion the use of the word ‘agriculture.’ That is 
now the technical name for the special kind of tillage which is 
carried on by means of the plough. 

According to the various ways in which such interference with 
the natural conditions of the soil is carried out, numerous types of 
tillage may be distinguished. Two essentially different types arise, 
owing to the fact, already mentioned, that all soil in which, apart 
from outside interference, the necessary conditions for the growth 
of cultivated plants are present is usually covered with luxuriant 
vegetation—in the tropics, with dense jungle. Thus, there are 
only two possible methods for obtaining cultivated plants: either 
to clear away the wild vegetation and use the good soil thus freed 
for raising the desired crops, or by artificial means to give fertility 
to soil that is in itself unfertile. In view of the enormous labour 
necessary for the first-named method of tillage, the clearing of 
forest-land, it is a legitimate assumption that this method only 
came into existence when civilization had attained a fairly high 
stage of development, and that the second method is the more 
primitive one. We, therefore, deal with the latter kind first, and 
here again we have to distinguish several subdivisions, according 
to the various means used to bestow fertility on soil that is in itself 
unfertile. 

Probably one of the most primitive methods of making unfertile 
soil fertile is to put fertile soil on the top of soil that is unfertile 
and therefore unencumbered by dense natural vegetation. For this 
type of tillage I have chosen the name mound-culture, because the 
repeated addition of fertile soil has produced artificial hillocks of 
earth, and in North America the common name for these is mounds. 
It is only in recent times that the nature of these mounds has been 
understood. In the swamp areas of ancient Paraguay artificial 
heaps of earth, atterrados, have been discovered and investigated. 
They are used to this day by the Guato Indians for their original 
108 


pp) VCACE Pe Ar GON OMY: 


purpose of growing akuri-palms.!_ For these atterrados the highest 
parts of the swamp were chosen, and covered with a layer of humus 
soil, eighteen inches thick, taken from the lower parts of the swamp. 
These mounds, which are now of considerable size, have been raised 
to their present height by repeated additions of new humus. This 
is the only explanation of the layered arrangement of the soil 
composing them. To this day the Guato Indians live on these 
atterrados at the season when the sap of the akuri-palm is ripe. 
They bury their dead there still, and this explains the presence of 
the numerous human skeletons and relics of ancient civilization 
that have been found in them. 

Similar hillocks have been found in other swampy regions of 
South America—in Moyos in North Bolivia, in the island of Marayo 
and in the La Plata delta, and there are many indications that most 
of the mounds discovered in North and Central America were ori- 
ginally plantation grounds. The so-called chinampas, the ‘floating 
gardens’ in Mexico, which were and still are used by the dwellers 
round Lake Chalco and Xochimilco, are also mound plantations, and 
resemble the others in all essential respects. These floating gardens 
are simply stretches of swamp that have been raised to their present 
height by the addition of mud, brought from the bottom of the 
canals by means of large bags attached to long poles. To all 
appearance, this mound-tillage has been practised for long periods 
over large stretches of the American continent. 

With regard to mound-culture in the Old World, in the absence 
of exploration we can meantime only adduce a few parallels. The 
Nubians still cover their lands with a thin layer of fertile soil brought 
from the depressions in the steppe; and the inhabitants of 
Micronesia obtain good soil for their diminutive atolls by excavating 
the rotten coral soil and filling in the excavations with decayed 
vegetable matter and other organic substances. _ 

While on the subject of mound-culture we may refer briefly to 
the still unsettled problem as to whether there is any connexion 
between the mounds of shells found all over the Old and the New 
Worlds (the kjékkenméddings or ‘kitchen-middens,’ as they are 
called) and similar plantations. As a matter of fact, lime is one 
of the best foods for certain cultivated plants—although many 
kinds of soil are deficient in it—and it is also a fact that both the 


1 Cf. Max Schmidt, ‘‘Die Guaté und ihr Gebiet,’’ in Baessley Archiv (1914), 
Heft 6, p. 253. 
IOg 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


North American Indians and the inhabitants of the South Seas 
manure their plantations with lime shells. 

The second type of tillage is in sharp contrast to mound-tillage. 
The only known examples of it belong to ancient Peru. It consisted 
in removing the upper layer of soil, mostly sterile sand, until fertile, 
moist earth was reached. The crops were raised in these depressed 
surfaces. 

The third method of obtaining fertile soil is hoeing or digging, 
so as to bring to the surface the deeper, fertile layers of soil, in place 
of the layers that have been exhausted by vegetation or rendered 
unfertile by deposits of salt. This method is confined to certain 
districts, mainly in Africa and in the South Seas. The name “hoe- 
culture’ should properly be applied only to this form of tillage, and 
it is illegitimate to use that term in a more general sense and 
apply it to all the forms of tillage practised by primitive peoples, 
as contrasted with the agriculture and horticulture of civilized 
nations. The peoples that carry on forest-clearing throughout 
the South American forest areas do not hoe or dig the cleared 
spaces at all. 

Turning up the soil with the plough, 7z.e., agriculture in the strict 
sense, is for the most part confined to European and Asiatic 
civilization, and therefore lies outside our subject. But it may 
be mentioned here that the Batta in the highlands of Sumatra 
use a plough, and many ethnologists consider that implement to 
be an independent invention of that people. 

The fourth type of tillage consists in the addition of manure to 
unfertile or exhausted soil, in order to supply the food necessary 
for the growth of cultivated crops. Although the use of manure is 
principally found in Europe and Asia, and in association with agri- 
culture proper, it is also found in all parts of the world and unasso- 
ciated with the use of the plough. All sorts of manure were used 
by the ancient Peruvians. They made lavish use of the guano 
found on the islands off their coast. It was distributed according 
to fixed regulations among the coast provinces and among the 
various landholders. They also used the dung of the llama and 
of other species of Auchenia, dried and pulverized human dung 
and dried fish. The North American Indians are also said to 
have manured their plantations with shells and fish, and the 
mulberry plantations of the Society Islanders were manured with 
broken shells and corals. 

IIo 


THE MATERIAL ECONOMY 


The fifth and last type of tillage consists in regulating the moisture 
necessary for growing crops. It includes irrigation, 1.e., supplying 
water where it is lacking, and drainage, 2.e., the removal of super- 
fluous water. 

There are various forms of irrigation culture. In one form of it 
terraces are laid out, chiefly on mountain slopes; in another form 
the land under cultivation is flooded with water. This second form 
is met with mainly on the low lands at the mouths of rivers, and the 
flooding is caused by the periodic rise and fall of the water of the 
river. 

Terrace-culture, combined with artificial arrangements for irri- 
gation, is found all over the world, and it was even commoner in 
earlier times than itis now. In Africa it is practised by the Berber 
tribes. It is also a common form of tillage among the Malays and 
in the Sunda Islands. In Polynesiathere are numerous remains of 
ancient terraces, and also in wide areas of Central America and 
Mexico, and even as far north as Arizona. It reached its highest 
development in ancient Peru, where extensive tracts of sterile land 
were thus brought under tillage. The steeper the mountain slopes, 
the higher and narrower were the individual terraces. They were 
supported by stone walls of gigantic dimensions. Higher up the 
mountain side, sometimes up to the snow-line, the terraces were 
simply made of earth. An enormous expenditure of labour was 
involved, not only in the masonry, but also in the filling of the 
terraces with suitable soil and in the arrangements for supplying 
water to the crops. The ancient Peruvians displayed great skill 
and ingenuity in arranging for a suitable water-supply. In some 
places the aqueducts, the azequias, were supported on high 
masonry ; in others they were hewn out in the rock. Some of 
them are covered channels, others are tunnels carrying the water 
through the mountains. The water was brought from artificial 
ponds high up on the mountain sides, or from stone reservoirs built 
for the purpose, and the supply was regulated by being dammed 
back or let through according to need. 

The second main method of tillage, ‘forest-clearing,’ is still the 
commonest type among the native races of the tropical and sub- 
tropical regions. It is carried on throughout the South American 
forest areas, in many parts of Central America, in Africa and 
Melanesia, and in former times it was the usual method followed by 
many native tribes of the Atlanticarea. Thechief labour involved 

III 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


is that of clearing away the trees and jungle of the area to be brought 
under tillage. While among the Bakairi Indians on the Upper 
Xingu I was a witness of the method pursued. First of all, the 
undergrowth and low thicket were cut down. Then the individual 
trees were notched so as to determine the direction in which they 
would fall. Lastly, one large tree on the edge of the area was felled. 
In its fall this tree knocked down the trees immediately adjacent to 
it; these in turn brought down those next to them, so that the 
whole section fell together with one prolonged crash. The fallen 
trees are left for months in the dry season, and when they have 
dried up fire is kindled throughout the area. All the brushwood 
and the smaller branches are burned, and the charred trunks are 
left onthe ground. The soil is neither hoed nor worked in any way, 
but at the beginning of the rainy season holes for the seeds or 
cuttings are made, and the earth surrounding them is slightly 
loosened with a pointed ‘planting stick’ or dibble. 

The tools used in tillage, of course, vary with the circumstances 
of the case. Hoeing is practised in restricted areas, and the 
hoe is therefore used only by a few native races. To speak of 
tillage as ‘hoe-culture’-—as Eduard Hahn has done, and taught 
others to do—is misleading, and this use of the word should be 
avoided. 

In ‘forest-clearing’ the most important tool is the axe. The axe- 
blade of the Africans is usually of iron, but all the other forest- 
clearing tribes use a ground stone axe with a wooden handle. This 
is the typical tool, and, therefore, the polished stone axe and 
forest-clearing are closely associated all through the history of both. 
The question of whether this holds good for prehistoric European 
civilization, and whether there is a connexion between the distri- 
bution of the neolithic polished stone axe and the practice of forest- 
clearing can only be answered after archeology has carried out 
further researches. 

In comparison with the stone axe, tillage tools are rare among the 
forest-clearing tribes. In place of the ‘digging stick,’ which is the 
universal tool of the tribes that pursue the ‘gathering’ process of 
production, the forest-clearers use the small, pointed ‘planting 
stick’ or ‘dibble.’ It is used to make holes in the soil to receive 
the seed or the cuttings to be planted. A special form of it, in use 
among the Indians on the Upper Xingu, is the claw of the great 
armadillo. Terrace-culture and mound-culture require tools for 
I12 


GH MA TERIALSECONOMY 


shifting soil. The pictorial writings of the ancient Mexicans 
suggest that they must have used a wooden tool, the cauacatl or 
uictlt, both for tilling the soil and for lifting soil and lime and other 
similar materials into their wicker-baskets. It was flat-shaped, 
broadening toward the point, with one side sharpened. Other 
spade-shaped wooden tools, with lateral attachments to receive 
the pressure of the foot, were used by the Aymara on the Peruvian 
plateau and by the Pueblo Indians in Arizona. 

With regard to the plants grown in these various forms of tillage, 
I must refer my readers to the relevant chapters of my book Die 


matertelle Wirthschaft bet den Naturvélkern (Leipzig, 1923). The 


following is a list of the chief plants grown. 


They are arranged in 


two columns to show the sharp difference between the plants of 
America and those of the Old World. 


I. AMERICAN 


I. GRAIN PLANTS 


Maize (Zea mays) 

Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) 
Sunflower (Helianthus) 

Bean (Phaseolus) 

Peanut (Avachis hypogea) 


2. BULBS OR TUBERS 


Mandioca, manioc, or yuca (Man- 
dioca utilissima and aipr) 

Batata ([pomea batatas) 

Potato (Solanum tuberosum) 

Oca (Oxalis crenata) 

Maca or Maxua (Tvopeolum tuber- 
osum) 


3. TREES 


Akuri-palm 

Pupanha-palm (Bactris speciosa) 
Pikeitree (Caryocar batyrosum) 
Mangave (Hancornia speciosa) 
Cocoa-tree (Theobroma cacao) 


II. OLD WORLD 


I. GRAIN PLANTS 


Oats (Avena sativa) 

Rye (Secale cereale) 

Wheat (Triticum vulgare) 

Barley (Hordeum vulgare) 

Rice (Oryza sativa) 

Sorghum (Sorghum vulgare) 

Millet (Panicum) 

Eleusine 

Buckwheat (Polygonum fagopyrum) 


2. BULBS OR TUBERS 


Taro or calo (Caladium esculentum) 
Yam (Dioscorea alata) 


3. TREES 


Oil-palm (El@is guineensis) 
Date-palm (Phenix dactylifera) 
Cocos-palm (Cocos nucifera) 
Sago-palm (Sagus rumphit) 

(Sagus levis) 
Banana or pisana (Musa sapientum) 
Breadfruit-tree (Artocarpus incisa) 


I1f3 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


3. PLEASURABLE PLANTS 3. PLEASURABLE PLANTS 
Coca (Evythroxylum coca) Sugar-cane (Saccharum officinarum 
Tobacco (Nicotiana) Tea plant (Thea chinensis) 


Cava or yacova (Piper methysticum) 
Areca-palm (Areca catecha) 

Guru- or kola-nut (Cola acuminata) 
Hemp (Cannabis indica) 


5. MISCELLANEOUS 5. MISCELLANEOUS 
Uruku (Bixa orellana), a dyestuff Cotton (Gossypium) 
plant Paper mulberry tree (Boussonetia) 


Cotton (Gossypium) 


Animal raw materials, like vegetable raw materials, can be 
obtained in two ways—taking such animals as nature provides, or 
systematically rearing such animals as are available and suitable 
for that purpose. Leaving out of account the mere gathering of 
animal eggs and of animals with slight locomotive powers, such as 
beetle larve, ants, and so on, the first method includes fishing and 
hunting. Bythe usage of language ‘fishing’ means the catching of 
fishes and the lowlier aquatic creatures, and ‘hunting’ means the 
capture of all land animals and higher genera of aquatic animals. 
The second method of obtaining animal raw material is called 
stock-farming. 

We turn first to fishing. Fishing peoples, like the Eskimo, the 
Indians of the North American north-west coast, and most inhabi- 
tants of Oceania, are usually also good boatmen. But there are 
other tribes, like the Botocudo and the Bororo Indians in Brazil 
and the coast Hottentots of South Africa, who are unacquainted with 
navigation of any kind, and who nevertheless obtain most of their 
food by fishing. Such tribes must needs catch their fish by wading 
or swimming. There are numerous methods, and several of these 
are found among one and the same people. 

1. Net-fishing is practised almost everywhere, although some 
races who depend largely on fishing do not employ this method. 
The Guato Indians, who are distinctly a fishing people, do not use 
nets, and there are some Australian coast tribes to whom this 
method is unknown. 

Among the various kinds of nets in common use there are the 
smaller hand-nets which can be worked by one person, and place- 
nets and drag-nets, which involve the co-operation of several persons. 
The hand-nets are of various kinds. According to Dobrizhoffer, 


II4 


PLATE 17 








FISHERMEN OF THE GAZELLE PENINSULA WITH HAND-NETS 


Melanesia 
Photo Parkinson 








FISHERMEN OF THE GAZELLE PENINSULA WITH TACKLE 114 


Melanesia 
Photo Parkinson 


BAIQUNAD -YIOM 070YT 
eolIawy YyNOS 
Cri . SNVIGN] OUDAN OL AO dVuL-HSIy 





81 ALV Id 


THE MATERIAL ECONOMY 


the missionary, the Payagua and the Villela, on the river Paraguay, 
tied small nets round their abdomen like aprons, and swam after 
the fish. There are also larger hand-nets of a less primitive kind, 
bag-shaped and attached to wooden poles or rods and provided 
with an arrangement for opening and closing the net. There are 
also shallow nets, fixed in a circular frame, with which the fish are 
lifted from the bottom of shallow water and thrown on to the land. 
Large place-nets and drag-nets are widely used by the peoples of 
the South Seas, by the Caraya of South America, who employ them 
to stop the entrances of the lakes, and they were also used by the 
ancient Peruvians on the coast and on the Titicaca lake. The 
practice was to stretch them between rafts of rushes. 

2. Fish-traps are also widely used. Some are fixed on the bottom 
of the water. Some are movable pots or baskets. 

The fixed, stationary traps are of all kinds. They may be simple 
banks of earth or dikes of stone, used to dam shallow and narrow 
streams, or barricades of tree branches to prevent the escape of the 
fish. A common arrangement consists of wattled fences fitted 
together in an angular fashion, allowing the fish an easy ingress, 
but making egress difficult. A different principle is applied in 
those traps in which the fish, on touching a bait or spring, are thrown 
on tothe land. Inthe case of movable traps, pots, or baskets, the 
fish can enter easily but find escape difficult, or their fins are caught 
in the meshes of the basket. 

3. Line-fishing is, properly speaking, merely a species of trapping, 
and there are several methods of catching fish which are transition 
stages between the two. Nooses fixed to handles are used by 
the inhabitants of the Gilbert Islands for catching eels, and large 
nooses attached to a float are used by the Fiji Islanders for catching 
sharks. 

Line-fishing proper consists of a hook attached to a line. Some- 
times the hook itself is the bait, and sometimes a bait is attached to 
it. Again, a stone sinker, or a float, made of a palm-leaf, may be 
added. The hook itself may be single or double, or even three may 
be used together. Three are used by the Indians of the north-west 
coast of North America for catching halibut andsalmon. A better 
hook has a barb added at a short distance from the point. The 
hook is made either of some flexible material, such as metal, flexible 
wood, or of some rigid substance, like shell, bone, horn, tortoise- 
shell, or even stone. When the hook consists of several parts the 


II§ 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


actual substance of which it is made may also be the bait, but in 
other cases the bait may be a decoy fish or an insect larva attached 
to the hook shank. A curious method of fishing is found among 
Melanesian peoples. Palm-leaves are bent and twisted into dragon 
shape, and this dragon pulls behind it in the water a bait in the 
shape of the silvery web of a spider. 

4. There are several ways of catching fish by using pozsonous 
materials. The stalks or leaves of a poisonous plant are cut up and 
crushed to pulp and thrown into the water where the fish resort ; 
or the poisonous plants are dragged through the water in the wake 
of a boat; or the water is poisoned by being whipped with the 
plants; or, finally, poisoned bait may be used. These methods of 
stupefying the fish can, of course, only be used in still water or in 
small streams that have been previously dammed back. 

5. Fish are also caught by means of fire-arms and thrusting 
weapons, but these are not quite the same as those used in hunting. 
They include the harpoon and the harpoon arrow, which is dis- 
charged from a bow. In both these weapons the sharp point 1s 
loosely set in the shaft, but is attached to it by a line wound round 
and round it. When the fish is struck it dives, carrying the point 
with it, but the line unwinds while the shaft floats, and in this 
manner the fish can be drawn from the water. The spears and 
arrows differ from those used in hunting. They have several sharp 
points or barbs side by side. 

6. Some tribes use animals for the purpose of catching fish. In 
China the cormorant is trained forthe purpose. A ring is put round 
its neck to prevent it from swallowing its catch. To judge from 
ancient Peruvian textile fabrics, this cormorant fishing seems to 
have been known, at least at one period, in ancient Peru. 

Passing now to hunting, five different methods are pursued, 
varying according to the habits of the animals that are hunted. 

1. Drives are carried out on a great scale. A large number of 
hunters co-operate and drive together those species of game animals 
which are numerous. Large place-nets and long converging fences 
are used, and the animals are driven toward these from all sides. 
Both fire and water are utilized in these drives. Grassland and 
brushwood are set on fire to prevent the escape of the game, and 
herds of wild animals which, like wild pigs, are more or less helpless 
in water are driven into the water and easily secured. 

2. Actual hunting by pursuit is chiefly carried out on level 


116 


BAIQUNAD -YIOM OJON 
Aauo yy df 010Ug [611 ‘d gag] “vortety YyNOS ‘oISaN ONY 
OII HSI. DONINVAdS NVISANVITE]Y (SNVIGNJ VOV3) ASA NI AGNI-ONIMOTY 











61 ALVId 


PLATE 20 





Lefi : HUNTING-SCREEN OF THE PareEssI INDIANS. fight: SAME 
READY FOR USE ay, 


South America. Originals in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 


THE MATERIAL ECONOMY 


stretches of steppe and grassland. It is, of course, most in evidence 
among peoples who ride horses. The Abipone of Chaco, in South 
America, hunt on horseback and simply despatch the quarry with 
a hunting-knife. The Bushmen on foot course their game to death. 
But there are many special instruments of the chase—lances, 
spears, bolas, lassos, clubs, and various missile weapons. Bows 
and arrows, which can only be used when the archer is standing still, 
are, of course, not used in this form of hunting. 

3. Stalking game and killing it from ambush. This is probably 
the most widespread form of hunting. A necessary preliminary is 
the tracking of the game, and here the native races are greatly 
assisted by their exact knowledge of the country and their fami- 
liarity with the habits of the animals concerned. In order to get 
within shooting distance, the hunter endeavours to steal up unob- 

served, or lies in wait at the places where the animals drink or feed, 
or even seeks in various ways to lure the animal toward him. 

‘Hunting-screen’ is perhaps the best name for the arrangement 
used by the hunter to conceal himself when stalking or lying in wait 
for his quarry. These screens may be either permanent erections, 
on the ground or in the branches of a tree, close to the animals’ 
feeding-place, or they may be movable screens, which the hunter 
carries about with him. The Paressi Indians used a frame, about 
a yard high, made of wooden rods or canes. Before being used, it 
was filled with palm-leaves or other foliage, and held in front of 
himself by the hunter when stalking. The Vedda hides himself 
with branches. The civilized Vedda creeps up to his prey behind 
his tame buffalo. Others are said to clothe themselves in animal 
skins. The North American Indian, when hunting stags, disguises 
himself by deerhide, or, when hunting the buffalo, in wolfskin ; and 
the Bushman of South Africa, when hunting ostriches, hides himself 
inside an ostrich-skin. 

All over the world animals are lured by imitating the cries by 
which they call each other, and, as a rule, native races are expert in 
this art. The Eskimo even entice seals out of the ice-holes by 
scratching on the ice with imitation claws. Large meadowlands 
are set on fire for the purpose of attracting game to the young grass 
that springs up. Another method is to frighten the animal by 
imitating the sounds of birds of prey and thus divert its attention 
from the stalker, or to imitate the wing-beat of birds of prey by 
means of the whirring-stick. 

117 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


The method of killing the stalked animal depends, of course, on 
the kind of hunting weapon employed. The following are the chief 
methods : 

Bow and arrows—perhaps the commonest hunting weapon of all. 
There are three different types of bow: the simple wand bow, with 
various subspecies, according to the nature of the transverse section 
of the wood of which the bow is composed; the pieced bow, used 
by the Arctic peoples ; and the composite bow, in which the various 
parts are made of different materials. The length varies from thirty 
inches up to nine feet, and it is remarkable that the longest bows 
are used by the races that are lowest in the scale of civilization, by 
the Vedda in Ceylon, the Papuans in New Guinea, the Botocudo, 
Siriono, and the Guato in South America. The bowstring may con- 
sist of vegetable material, strips of seaweed, bamboo, twisted cords 
of vegetable fibre, or of animal material, like strips of leather or 
sinew twisted into a cord. 

Since C. S. Morse in his book Ancient and Modern Methods of 
Arrow-release pointed out various ways of bending the bow, much 
attention has been given to the subject. Several of these ways 
necessitate the use of special artifices, like tenter-rings, thumb-rings, 
leather gloves, straps of wood or iron stretching across the back of 
the hand, like those employed by the Wute and other African tribes. 
Again, the left wrist is frequently protected against the recoil of the 
bowstring by armlets of leather or cotton strips, or by rings of 
leather or ivory. The Vedda and some South American tribes 
are said to have used their feet as an aid in bending their 
bows. 

Arrows are of various kinds. Some are simply pointed rods of 
wood or cane. Others are more ingeniously constructed and con- 
sist of a cane shaft, an intermediate section made of wood, and a 
special end-piece. Some are winged with feathers, others are bare. 
Some are notched at the lower end of the shaft, in others this is 
lacking. A rarer form has the lower end thickened into bludgeon- 
shape. 

It is a widespread custom to smear the arrow-point with some 
poisonous substance. The poisoned point is frequently loosely 
attached to the rest of the arrow, so as to break off in the body of 
the animal that is hit.1_ Poisoned arrows are usually kept ina special 
quiver, and each single arrow is provided with a special cover for 

. oe L. Lewin, Die Pfeilgifte : Historische und experimentelle Untersuchungen. 
II 


THE MATERIAL ECONOMY 


the point, to safeguard the hunter himself from injury. Some- 
times several arrows are put together into the cover. 

The crossbow, which is really only an improved bow, belongs to 
the civilization of Europe and Asia, but it has been copied and 
adopted by many of the Indian tribes of Hindu Kush and of Africa. 

The spear-thrower is both a weapon of war and an instrument of 
the chase, and has the advantage over the bow that its use requires 
only one hand, and can thus be used while the hunter is actually 
pursuing the quarry. It is a stick on which lies a projectile held 
steady by a projecting stud at the rear end. It is held over the 
right shoulder and is swung forward in a vertical arc, so that the 
projectile is sped quickly forward. The stick is usually narrow. 
It is used by the Eskimo and the Australian tribes. The South 
American form is shaped like a stick, flattened at the front end only. 

The blowing-tube, in its common form, is a piece of a suitable kind 
of cane or palm wand, three or four yards long. It is either pierced 
from end to end, or cut longitudinally in halves ; the pith is removed 
and the rind is carefully stuck together again. These tubes have 
often a mouthpiece of wood, and a sort of vizor made of wax or of 
rodents’ teeth. A bunch of small poisoned arrows as thin as needles 
is held together with vegetable fibres and exactly fills the hollow 
of the tube at the lowerend. These arrows are then blown out with 
all the lung power that the hunter can command. 

Other hunting weapons are the bola (a sling for throwing stones), 
the lance and the spear, various kinds of missile weapons, like the 
boomerang and the round club, and, lastly, the club itself. 

4. The laying or setting of traps of all kinds is found among all 
peoples. The most outstanding form is the pitfall, used by the 
Australians for catching kangaroos. 

5. Game is also hunted and caught with the aid of animals, 
including the cheetah or Indian leopard (Cynelurus), and, of 
domesticated animals, the dog. The former inhabitants of Cuba 
used to catch turtles by using fishes attached to a line, but this 
should perhaps be considered a form of fishing rather than hunting. 

Stock-farming! may be defined as an artificial interference with the 
natural process of development of an animal species, by changing 
at will the conditions of life, and by natural selection. By ‘domes- 
ticated’ animals we mean the new species thus produced from the 


1 Cf. Eduard Hahn, Die Haustieve und ihre Beziehungen zur Wirtschaft des 
Menschen (Leipzig, 1896). 
IIg 


THE PRIMITIVE RACE S*@ne ean ITN 


wild original species, so long as they and their course of development 
are under the controlof man. The purpose is to improve the desir- 
able qualities of certain animals by breeding, in order to obtain 
in an enhanced form the raw materials or other advantages which 
the animals can provide. The number of animals which are capable 
of being thus improved is comparatively small, and the number of 
actual domestic animals which are economically of any importance 
is not more than thirty. In the course of the many centuries for 
which data are available, very few new apes have been added to 
the list of domesticated arin 

The question of what led men to take up the practice of stock- 
farming has been discussed by Eduard Hahn in his already-men- 
tioned work. Hahn maintains that its original purpose was to 
provide material for religious cultus. This view cannot be sub- 
stantiated. The raising of domestic animals is a purely economic 
function, and economic motives cannot be ignored in the explana- 
tion of its origin. In fact, the raising of domestic animals, and in 
particular cattle-breeding, was primarily a purely economic opera- 
tion, and its religious significance was both later and subsidiary. 
The relevant facts connected with this subject are numerous enough 
and clear enough to refute all such ingenious hypotheses as those 
of Hahn. 

In the first place, the mere taming of certain wild animals cannot 
be considered to be the starting-point of cattle-breeding, for this — 
alone would never produce domesticated animals. The mere fact 
that the cattle on a large stock-farm are not tame, but are collected 
like wild animals by driving and caught by a lasso, is sufficient to 
show that tameness is not a necessary quality in domestic animals. 
We can only speak of stock-raising when human control extends to 
the whole of a species, or at least to that portion of it comprised 
within a given district. Transition stages, illustrating the course 
of its development, are known from ancient Peru. The Auchenia 
species were mainly bred there, and they are found only there and 
in the adjacent regions. Guanaco and vicufia are wild species, 
llama and alpaca are domesticated ; indeed, the latter is probably 
a hybrid form between the llama and the wild vicufia. But some 
attention was also paid to the wild guanaco and the vicufia. Not 
only were heavy punishments in force for any transgressions of the 
strict hunting laws, but great drives of these animals were from 
time to time arranged by the Inca himself or his representatives, at 
I20 


THE MATERIAL ECONOMY 


which the animals were gathered into folds and separated from each 
other. Only part of the animals thus captured were used as food 
at the great communal feasts, and the vicufias were shorn of their 
valuable wool and thereafter liberated. This ancient Peruvian 
method of dealing with the wild species of Auchenia produced the 
llama as a specific domestic animal with the characteristic marks of 
artificial breeding, v7z., leucodermia and melanism. Exactly similar 
transition stages to the breeding of domestic animals are exemplified 
in the relation in which the mishmi and the kaki in Assam stand to 
the wild herds of gayal. These animals are liberally provided with 
salt and encouraged to associate with tame animals, and are in this 
way gradually brought under the control of man. 

Lack of space forbids our entering into greater detail regarding 
the various species of animals that have been domesticated. The 
following list is intended to indicate the small number of species of 
American animals that have been domesticated in comparison with 
those in the Old World. 

American species of domestic animals: (1) dog; (2) llama; 
(3) alpaca; (4) guinea-pig; (5) turkey; (6) musk duck. 

Domestic animals of the Old World: (1) dog; (2) cat ; (3) horse ; 
(4) ass and mule, hybrid between the male ass and the mare (horse) ; 
(5) double-humped camel; (6) dromedary ; (7) ox; (8) buffalo ; 
(9) gayal; (10) yak; (11) reindeer; (12) goat ; (13) sheep; (14) pig; 
(15) rabbit; (16) ferret; (17) fowl; (18) guinea-fowl; (19) pea- 
cock; (20) pigeon; (21) duck; (22) goose; (23) swan; (24) carp; 
(25) honey-bee, actually raised and bred only in comparatively 
recent times; (26) silkworm. Ostrich-raising has been adopted 
from European civilization only in recent decades, 

The elephant and the cormorant cannot be classed with these 
animals. The former is as a rule caught wild and thereafter tamed, 
but it is not raised. The cormorant’s eggs are taken from the wild 
birds and hatched out by domestic fowls. 

Raw material is procured from inanimate nature as follows: 
certain soils are obtained for plantation purposes ; clay is used in 
the production of bricks and pottery wares ; it is also used to satisfy 
the disastrous mania of some races for geophagy, the eating of clay ; 
lime is used as a condiment with certain foods. Apart from these, 
the following four materials are obtained from inanimate nature— 
water, stone, metals, and salt. 

When water is available in unlimited quantity and within easy 

I21I 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


reach of human habitation it cannot be included among economic 
values. In dry regions, however, it becomes one of the most 
valuable commodities, and special measures must be taken to 
procure it. It is an important consideration in this connexion 
that the possibility of procuring water is frequently restricted, not 
only by local conditions, as is the case with the other raw materials 
derived from inanimate nature, but also by periodic variations of 
time and season. 

There are three ways of procuring water artificially in dry regions : 

1. By diverting water flowing on the surface of the earth, that is, 
by some arrangement of water-pipes connected with artificial 
reservoirs. The object is sometimes merely to provide the inhabi- 
tants with drinking water, but this method is also used in the 
irrigation of growing crops. 

2. By digging a hole in the ground to collect the ground water. 
This is the origin of what is perhaps the oldest of all the methods of 
procuring water—the digging of wells. 

3. By catching rain-water in special reservoirs. 

There are also three methods of obtaining stone: gathering it 
from the surface of the earth, breaking it from the bare outcrop of 
rock, and, thirdly, taking it from beneath the superincumbent strata 
of earth by means of pits or mines. 

Metals are either provided by nature in a pure state, or they are 
found as ores, from which the metals are obtained by smelting. 
The most important metal of all, iron, is found pure only in the 
form of meteoric iron. In the main, however, the methods of 
obtaining iron and ore follow the same principles, and there are 
three different ways in which they may be obtained. The metal or 
ore is simply collected where it lies on the earth’s surface ; the ore 
or metal is separated from the sand or other sediment by the use 
of water or in some other way ; or, finally, it is obtained by the 
process of mining. 

Salt can be obtained from vegetable materials, but that method 
does not concern us here. Apart from that, there are three ways 
by which it is obtained: it may be taken from the beds of salt 
provided by nature ; it may be lixiviated from salt water ; it may 
be obtained from saliferous clay, by treating the latter with water, 
filtering the solution and thereafter evaporating the filtrate. 

By the transformation of material or industrial production is 
meant the transformation of agiven substance into certain products, 
I22 


TE NPAPE RTA CEE C.ON ONGY 


and it therefore includes all the activities by which materials are 
thus worked up and utilized. 

Of the various means of production employed in the transfor- 
mation of materials, we can deal here only with one, viz., fire. It is 
one of the most important, apart from its connexion with any given 
type of production. It is not only a means of production in all 
kinds of activities by which material is worked up, but, as we 
have seen, it is also used as an agent in some forms of primary 
production. 

Owing to its three chief properties, producing heat, giving light, 
and giving rise to changes in natural materials by chemical or 
physical action, fire has come to be an indispensable element in 
human civilization. The possession of fire is thus a prerequisite of 
the economic life of man as a whole, and therefore indispensable to 
human life itself. The question, therefore, as to how man came 
to be possessed of it lies outside the sphere of ethnology. 

Among the various methods! used by mankind outside the 
civilization of Asia and Europe for producing fire are the fol- 
lowing four: 

1. By drilling or friction by means of wood in wood. 

(a) By the fire-drill. A stick of wood, the ‘spindle,’ is held 
upright, and twirled in a depression in a piece of wood lying hori- 
zontally, ‘the hearth.’ The fire-drill is either (a) a simple fire-drill, 
in which case the spindle is twirled with the hands ; (f) a cord-drill, 
the twirling motion being produced by means of a cord encircling 
the spindle, and the necessary pressure being secured by an abut- 
ment in which the spindle revolves; (y) a bow drill, in which, 
instead of a simple cord, the string of a small bow is put round 
the spindle and the rotary movement is produced by moving the 
bow to and fro; (8) a pump-drill (not to be confused with the fire- 
pump, mentioned below), in which the rotary motion is brought 
about, after the manner of an endless screw, by a double cord, the 
free lower ends of which are attached to a cross stick. 

(b) By the fire-plough. A stick held at an angle is rubbed 
vigorously to and fro in a longitudinal slit of a horizontal piece of 
wood. 

(c) By the fire-saw. A stick is drawn to and fro on rotten 


1 See Dixon, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. (1903) ; Hough, Rep. Nat. Mus. 
(1888, 1890) ; Max Schmidt, ‘‘ Das Feuerbohren nach indianischer Weise,” in 
Zeitschrift fir Ethnologie (1903), Heft tr. 

123 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


wood, or a rod of rotang is drawn to and fro ona stick placed 
diagonally, with a cleft in the end of it filled with tinder. 

2. By percussion. Stone is struck on stone, or stone is struck on 
metal, so as to produce sparks. 

3. By the fire-pump. Thisis used only in parts of Upper India and 
Borneo. Suitable tinder is powerfully compressed in a ate closed 
at the bottom and fire is generated. 

4. By the burning-glass, used only in one region of Tibet. 

The transformation of material may consist either in a mere 
alteration of the external form of the material, or in a change in 
its material qualities. The two main kinds of it are, therefore, 
those which are due to physical or mechanical forces, and those 
which are brought about by chemical forces. 

There are four chief types of the process of transforming materials 
by means of mechanical forces: (1) The transformation of plastic 
materials, (2) transformation by dividing, or breaking up, the 
materials, (3) the conjoining of different materials to form compo- 
site wholes, and (4) changing the external nature of the materials 
by mechanical process. 

The transformation of plastic materials includes the utilization 
of wax, resin, rubber, and similar materials, but the chief Ox e 
of it are pottery and metalwork. 

Notwithstanding its great economic importance, pottery is by no 
means universal among mankind. There are large regions where 
it is unknown, and it is striking to find that many of these regions 
are inhabited by peoples of a comparatively high civilization, 
such as the Indians on the north-west coast of America and most 
inhabitants of Polynesia. All kinds of commodities for use are 
made by the plastic manipulation of clay—pipes, spinning-whorls, 
beads, loopsand chains, and figures of men and animals; but by far 
the most important articles thus manufactured are vessels and pots, 
and it is therefore usually the production of these that is meant 
by ‘pottery,’ or ‘ceramics.’ 

The use of the potter’s wheel is unknown to most races outside 
of Europe and Asia, but by other methods they were able to make 
vessels of almost any desired kind. As these methods were entirely 
different from each other, the beginnings of pottery-work must be 
sought in directions which are altogether independent of and 
unconnected with each other. The methods practised outside of 
Europe and Asia are as follows : 

124 


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FURNACES FOR SMELTING IRON IN BANYELI, TOGOLAND 











SMITHS OF THE BARI 125 
Upper Nile 


THE MATERIAL ECONOMY 


1. The vessel is shaped from a lump of clay with the hands alone, 
or with the aid of a flat tool made of wood or metal. 

2. The clay is applied round the outside of a basket or aint 
skin, which thus serves as an inside frame or core. 

3. The vessel is built up from the bottom to the rim by rolls of 
clay laid spirally one over another, round by round. 

4. The vessel is shaped with the help of a clay mould. The 
subsequent process of firing gives the vessel the necessary hardness, 
and makes it capable of resisting both fire and water. 

The great importance of metalworking in the economic life of 
mankind is evidenced by the fact that archeology still speaks of 
the successive periods of human civilization as the Stone Age and 
the Age of Metals, emphasizing the Iron Age as a separate period. 
Many of the native races of the present day are living at a stage of 
civilization that is destitute of metals, and before European civili- 
zation reached them most of the native races of the American 
continent and of the South Seas were ignorant of the process of 
working in metal. 

The simplest form of metalworking, beyond which many races, 
like the North American Indians, have not passed, is simply 
hammering into the desired shape the pieces of pure metal found 
in nature. It marked a great step forward when the process of 
obtaining metals from their ores by smelting was discovered. The 
process of casting was, of course, an inevitable deduction, and this 
art of pouring molten metal into clay moulds led to a much greater 
variety and range in the shapes of metal tools. The same art made 
it further possible to mix various metals together, and so produce 
alloys combining the useful properties of the metals thus mixed. 
Thus the combination of copper, which is soft and therefore easily 
malleable, with the harder metal, tin, produced bronze, which, on 
account of its more attractive colour, is preferable to copper as a 
material for ornaments, and, on account of its greater hardness, is 
better than copper for utensils. We have evidence of such a tran- 
sition from the Copper Age to the Bronze Age in the New World 
(among the ancient Peruvians), as well as in the Old World. 

Seeing that iron, apart from isolated examples of meteoric iron, 
is never found pure in nature, working in iron was only possible 
when men had learned how to obtain metals from their ores.+ In 

1 See Stuhlmann, Handwerk und Industrie in Ostafrika, and von Luschan, 
‘* Eisentechnik in Africa,” in Zeitschr. f. Ethnol. (1909). 

125 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


the economic life of the native races of Africa working in iron has 
played an important part for ages, and some men who know Africa 
well consider that the smith’s art is indigenous there. All the same, 
the ironwork of most African races, both as regards the smelting 
of iron ore and the technique of smithy work, is of a very primitive 
kind. Their smelting furnace is a mere shallow pit in clayey soil, 
with lateral holes to admit air. In more developed forms of furnace 
this pit is surrounded with a circular rim of clay, and actual blast- 
furnaces are made by raising the pit walls up to six feet high. The 
tools used are equally primitive. The hammers are made of stone, 
or prism-shaped pieces of iron, and a simple piece of rock is the 
invariable anvil. The bellows are specially remarkable. They are 
of two kinds—the so-called vascular bellows and the so-called 
bag-bellows. 

Transformation of material by disintegration is of two kinds— 
either breaking it up into smaller portions, e.g., pounding the grain 
of maize, or separating some part for use from those parts of the 
whole mass which are not to be used, e.g., breaking out the flint 
knife from the ‘nucleus.’ 

The simple process of breaking up a whole into smaller parts 
may, again, take three different forms: (1) Pounding more or less 
hard materials with a wooden pounder in a mortar of wood, or a 
hollowed-out piece of a tree stem ; (2) crushing the raw material by 
means of a millstone (this is almost universally used for crushing 
grain, the grain being crushed by means of a stone cylinder on a 
flat netherstone) ; (3) grating the raw material, usually of a soft 
nature, like bulbs of manioc, by means of a grater. The grater 
used by the South American forest Indians is usually a board 
studded with palm-spikes or small, sharp stones. 

Examples of the transformation of material by separating some 
parts of it from the rest are the hewing of stone, the cutting of wood 
or bark, the carving of shells or bones, the stoning of fruits, and the 
peeling of roots. 

Stone, when it is of a kind that is easily broken, like flint or 
obsidian, can be worked up by being hammered or compressed so as 
to detach flakes of it from the nucleus. The stone to be hammered 
is supported on another stone, and a flake from a definite part of the 
surface is detached by a vigorous stroke with a stone hammer, 
which is mostly round. A special instrument is used to detach 
flakes of stone by pressure. It is a stick with a cross-piece, or a 
126 


EEE WATER ar eONOM,. 


piece of reindeer’s antler with a handle, or a chisel of bone, and is 
struck with a wooden mallet or hammer. 

In the third method of stoneworking the surface of the stone is 
gradually worn away by being hewn with a hammer; and in the 
fourth method the softer species of stone, like soapstone, pipestone, 
and limestone, are cut by means of knives, chisels, and similar sharp 
instruments. A fifth method is grinding. It is used to polish or 
smooth a stone tool, or to sharpen its edge, or to work those kinds 
of stone which are too hard to be broken by hammer or compression. 
One example is nephrite. 

A sixth method of working in stone is the perforation of stone 
tools or other objects. This is done by drills similar to those used 
in producing fire. It is used to perforate stone beads and the lugs 
of ornaments, and the North American Indians use it in making 
their long tobacco-pipes. 

As native races have as a rule ample material out of which 
to manufacture their wooden utensils, and do not make them out of 
odd pieces of wood, they first sever from a suitable tree-trunk a 
piece of convenient size for the implement in view. They next 
hollow out the log, to make a large signal drum or a mortar, or split 
it, for flat instruments like oars, etc. The hollowing-out process is 
usually carried out by means of fire. The splitting process is used 
in the case of larger logs, and for this purpose wedges made of horn 
or other hard material are employed. Much depends on whether 
the workers have metal tools or whether they are confined to other 
kinds. Those races which have no metal implements must do the 
best they can with the stone hatchet, and do the coarser work with 
tools made of bone, teeth, and shell. While many kinds of fairly 
competent work in wood can be done with these tools, including 
well-made chisels of rodent teeth and business-like planes made of 
shell with a sharp-edged hole in the centre, such as are used by the 
Indians on the Upper Xingu, good carving is restricted to those 
regions where, as in ancient Peru and Mexico and among most 
African races, metal tools were available. An exception must be 
made in the case of the artistic carving done by the natives of 
Oceania without metal tools. 

We can only refer to barkwork here so far as it involves the separa- 
tion of the bark from the tree-trunk and its division into pieces of 
suitable size. The most important manufacture is that of boats 
of bark. The Xingu Indians proceed as follows: A scaffolding of 

Ta 


Fig. 2. 








- 3 = 


id b4 = ——— 







——————— 


——————— 









DIAGRAM SHOWING HOW THE ‘ STEPS-AND-STAIRS’ PATTERN IN 


BASKETRY IS PRODUCED 















































Fig. 3. DIAGRAM SHOWING HOW THE ‘ STEPS-AND-STAIRS’ PATTERN IN 
BASKETRY IS PRODUCED 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


several stories is built round the selected tree. Working from this 
scaffold, the Indians slit with axes pieces of bark sufficient for two 
boats, each boat consisting of a half-round of bark. Cane rods are 
then driven in between the bark and the wood of the tree, and the 
boat pieces are gradually loosened from the tree in two complete 
halves. 

Many forms of technique are used in the process of combining 
different materials into one composite whole. The following are the 
most outstanding types: cording or strapping, sewing, basketry, 
weaving, network, gluing, and, lastly, using the force of gravitation. 

The extensive use by all native races of the process of cording 
or strapping things together is explained by the fact that the use 
of nails and screws is for the most part unknown among them.1 

All manner of animal and vegetable materials are employed for 
this purpose—strips of hide or leather, sinews, stems of climbing 
plants, pliant twigs, bast, strips of bark. Use is also made of 
twisted cords and threads of vegetable fibre or animal sinews. 
These, like fire, seem to be universally used among all native 
tribes. The spindle is mainly used to make threads of cotton 
and wool. 

In the process of sewing or stitching, a needle, or an awl, or, in the 
case of harder material, a drill, is used to pierce the edges of the 
material and to sew them together. Seeing, however, that most 
native races have ample material available, this process is of com- 
paratively small importance to many of them. 

A classification of the various types of basketry, if it is to include 
all the leading types, must be based not so much on the external 
structure as on the original plan of the work and the whole 
method of its construction. Looked at from this latter point of 
view, there are four essentially different types of plaited work, 
or basketry.? 

The first is as follows: Two sets of strips, at right angles to each 
other, are plaited together in such a way that the strips of the one 
set pass over a certain number of strips of the other set, so that the 
meshes running in the same direction project one above another in 
the form of steps. Usually, the number of strips thus crossed is 

1 Mention should be made, however, of the ‘ screw’ with which some Eskimo 
tribes attach the bone points to their arrow-shafts. 

2 See Mason, Aboriginal American Basketry; Max Schmidt, Indianerstudien 


tn Zentralbrasilien (Berlin, 1905), also Ableitung stidamerikanischer Geflechts- 
muster aus der Technik des Flechtens (1904). 


130 


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SoutTH AMERICAN BASKETRY 
Above, ‘steps-and-stairs’ pattern (left, Nahakua; right, Guato). Below, on the 
left, ‘spiral-roll’ (Fuegians) ; on the right, ‘cane-chair’ pattern (Purus) 


rere 
a 





131 


HE MATERIALS E CONOM Y. 


two or three. Sometimes, however, only one is crossed, and it is 
this style which Mason, in his classification of the American weaves, 
makes a separate group under the name of ‘chequerwork,’ or chess- 
board pattern. But, seeing that the difference between the one- 
mesh and the two- or three-mesh style is solely a difference of 
external structure, it is better to classify all three as one type. A 
suitable name would be the ‘steps-and-stairs’ style. 

But this ‘ steps-and-stairs’ style includes two kinds of basketry 
which differ essentially in their whole technique, and this distinction 
is of fundamental importance for understanding the ornamentation 
in basketry. In previous works, dealing specially with the basketry 
of the South American Indians, I have named these two subdivisions 
“pinnate-leaf’ and ‘fan-leaf’ basketwork, because these Indians 
frequently use for their steps-and-stairs plaitwork either palm- 
leaves entire, ribs and all, or the single petioles of the palm-leaves. 
The difference in shape of the two kinds of palm-leaves, the pinnate 
leaves and the fan leaves, makes a decisive difference in the design 
of the steps-and-stairs weaves. The points of essential difference 
between the above-named two subdivisions of the stepped basket- 
work are these : 

In the pinnate-leaf style the two sets of strips both start from 
the same edge of the piece. In baskets and mats plaited with the 
entire pinnate leaf the weave is formed by the leaf-rib, the two 
pinnate groups branching out from it in opposite directions. In 
the case of baskets the leaf-rib is usually at the top edge, and it is 
from this edge, therefore, that the plait begins, so that the final 
fastening in of the free ends must run along the bottom of the basket. 
In these weaves the strips run at an angle of 45° to the edge—that is, 
diagonally if the piece is a square, and the pattern therefore runs 
either parallel with or at right angles to the top edge. 

On the other hand, in the ‘fan-leaf’ style, the two sets of strips 
start from two different points and converge, so as to run parallel 
with the edges of the piece, and the pattern shows in a diagonal 
direction. In baskets plaited in this way the work starts from the 
bottom, and the fastening-in of the free ends is at the top rim of the 
basket. 

Both pinnate-leaf and fan-leaf basketry possess a quality that is 
of great importance for ornamentation. From the very start they 
show, and must show, a pattern or design, formed by the parallel 
rows of meshes. In both types there is one and only one possible 


131 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


variation of pattern, because the strips forming the pattern may run 
at right angles to each other in two different directions. But there 
is a great difference between the pattern in the pinnate-leaf and that 
in the fan-leaf styles, because the mutually perpendicular pattern 
strips of the adjacent units meet quite differently. Whereas in the 
pinnate-leaf style the pattern strips of the second unit all stand 
perpendicularly on the last pattern strip of the first, in the fan-leaf 
style the mutually perpendicular strips run in such a way that the 
pattern strips which end at the sides where the adjacent plaits touch 
each other always meet in twos at right angles (see Figs. 2 and 3). 
In the fan-leaf style, therefore, much greater variety of pattern is 
possible than in the pinnate-leaf style. 
In the fan-leaf style the original plait unit 
is always a rectangle (or square) at an angle 
of 45° to the edge, and the stripe runs 
either from below upward from left to 
right or, vice versa, from above downward 
from right to left. When we come to speak 
of ornamentation, we shall see how, by a 
combination of these two styles, which 
differ only in the direction of the stripe, and 
which are most simply described as “plait 

Fig. 4. Tue‘ Douste- quadrangles,’ a great variety of patterns, 

reenter e: zigzag lines, concentric rhombs, and mean- 
dering patterns can be produced, and we shall also see how these 
patterns are, in part at least, directly due to the technique of this 
steps-and-stairs type of basketry. 

In the second style of basketwork a number of rods, leaf-stems, 
wisps of grass, palm-fibres, or bunches of threads are laid parallel and 
fastened together in such a way that a double, or even sometimes a 
triple, thread is run continuously or repeatedly through the whole, 
so that the two strands of the double thread at each turn encircle 
one of the rods or wisps (see Fig. 4). As the double thread is the 
most important feature in this style of plaiting, we may call it the 
‘double-thread’ basketry. This style, which is very widely distri- 
buted over the world, is mainly used in making mats of all kinds, as 
well as hammocks, baskets, mosquito-nets, and numerous other 
articles of that sort. 

A third style of basketry is that in which two sets of strips cross 
each other in various directions, and are interplaited with a third set 
G32 


oo 


yA 





THE MATERIAL ECONOMY 


running in a different direction, so that they are conjoined both with 
each other and with this last set. The best name for this is the 
‘cane-chair’ style. Baskets are frequently plaited in this way, but 
it is mostly used to make wicker cases for other objects, such as 
pumpkin-skins. 

The fourth style of basketry is frequently used, especially in 
North America, in making baskets. The coils of a spiral of bast, 
strips of cane, or other similar material 
start from the centre of the basket- 
bottom and are joined together by a 
plaiting strip. This strip is coiled con- 
tinuously round two successive coils of 
the spiral. This style, which is used in 
all the types that Mason includes under 
the name of coiled work, is usually 
called “spiral-roll’ work, and has many 
points of resemblance to network. 

Weaving is closely akin to basketry— 
indeed, properly speaking, it is only 
another form of it. Therefore, it is first 
of all necessary to understand clearly 
the principle that distinguishes the two 
techniques from each other.1 The word 
“weaving’ should not be understood in 
a too narrow sense, as if its characteristic 
feature were the arrangement by which 
a simultaneous raising and lowering of 
the even or odd numbers of the warp Fig. 5. ees Conv nicae 
threads is produced by mechanical 
means. Such an interpretation would exclude a large number of 
ancient Peruvian materials which would otherwise be classified as 
woven tissues. They were demonstrably not manufactured by 
mechanical process. It is better, therefore, not to consider this as 
an essential feature, and to apply the name “woven tissue’ to any 
material produced when a number of warp threads are stretched 
side by side and the so-called weft thread is passed through them 
alternately from right to left and from left to right. 

The intermediate stages between weaving and basketry are not, 





















































1 Cf. Hugo Ephraim, Uber die Entwickelung der Webetechnik und thre Ver- 
breitung ausserhalb Europas. 
133 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


as might be supposed from a comparison of the purely external 
structure of pieces taken at random, to be found in the one-mesh 
steps-and-stairs basketry, but in certain types of the double-thread 
style, in which the double thread of the basketwork, like the weft 
thread in weaving, runs alternately from left to right and from right 
to left through the series of plaiting strips, which corresponds to the 
Warp in weaving. 

The details of the technique of weaving are somewhat compli- 
cated, and we can only refer to the chief features of the process. In 
the first place, a number of threads, called the ‘warp,’ are stretched 
parallel to each other on an apparatus called a loom. There are 
two varieties of loom, a vertical and a horizontal. In the simplest 
arrangement of the warp a thread is wound continuously round two 
fixed rods at some distance apart, so that a row of parallel threads is 
formed on the front side and another row on the rear side between 
the rods. 

The actual weaving process is as follows: By means of a shuttle, 
the weft thread is taken alternately from left to right and from right 
to left through the series of warp threads stretched on the loom. 
In the commonest type of woven tissue the weft thread is carried by 
one stroke of the shuttle so that the even numbers of the warp 
threads are under, and the odd numbers are over the weft, and at 
the next stroke the odd numbers of the warp are under and the 
even numbers are over the weft. 

It is, of course, animportant step in advance when the loom can be 
so constructed that all the even or all the odd warp threads can be 
simultaneously raised and lowered by mechanical means. The 
weft thread need not then be laboriously threaded with a needle 
through the warp threads, but can be shot through the ‘set’ thus 
mechanically opened. Such a ‘set’ can be produced in several 
ways. In one very simple method either the odd or the even warp 
threads have loops which are all connected to a rod, so that the 
whole series of odd or even threads can be raised by one motion of 
the hand. In another common form the even warp threads are 
drawn through the interstices of a wooden lattice, and the odd 
threads through small holes in the middle of the lattice slats ; or 
two lattices are used, which can be raised or lowered alternately by 
a treadle arrangement. 

It is quite obvious that, if the warp and weft threads be dyed 
different colours, it is possible to produce a certain amount of 


I 34 


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WARP PATTERNS AND 


(6 AND c) WEFT PATTERNS 


Fig. 6. CouRSE OF THE THREADS IN (a) 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


design in the woven tissue. By itself, however, this can only 
produce a simple stripe pattern. More elaborate patterns can only 
be produced by combining this difference of colour with variations 
of the warp ‘sets’—that is to say, by varying the way in which the 
weft thread is led through the warp. It makes an essential dif- 
ference, whether the design is formed by the warp or the weft 
threads. In ordinary weaves either the warp threads are closer 
together and cover up the weft threads which are wider apart, or, 
vice versa, the weft threads are closer together than the warp threads 
and cover them up. In the one case only meshes of the warp 
threads are visible on the surface of the woven tissue; in the other 
case only meshes of the weft can be seen. Thus only the warp 
threads or only the weft threads can have anything to do with the 
pattern. Seeing that, as a rule, the warp threads run through the 
whole tissue, while each weft can be of any desired colour, there is 
naturally much more room for weft patterns than for warp patterns. 
The scenic representations done in coloured threads in the tissues 
woven in ancient Peru are therefore a]l weft patterns. 

As contrasted with basketry and weaving, the process of netting 
or network uses only one continuous thread. A small stick or a 
small rectangular slab is continuously wound round with a thread. 
The next row of meshes is made round a second stick or slab with a 
netting-needle. The first stick is then pulled out of the first row 
of meshes and placed in front of the second row, and the third row 
of meshes is netted round it. In the same way the second stick is 
pulled out of the second row of meshes and placed in front of the 
first. The width of the two sticks, or slats, of course, determines 
the width of the mesh of the net. 

Two different styles of netting are produced according as the 
continuous thread is knotted or simply looped round the netting 
stick, 

Considerations of space forbid any description of the various other 
kinds of similar work, knitting, crochet, and embroidery. 

The principal materials used by native races for gumming and 
gluing things together are the various kinds of resin and wax. The 
Guato Indians of South America make fish-glue from the swimming- 
bladder of fishes. Peoples of higher civilization, like the ancient 
Peruvians, used various mortars to hold together the stones of their 
Masonry—lime or gypsum, claymarl or asphalt mixed with small 
stones. Among native races, however, gluing is not much used by 
136 











AFRICAN MAT-WEAVING 
Photo W. Straschewski 





GREENWICH ISLANDER AT THE LOOM 136 
Micronesia. From a photograph in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 


PALI 226 











PRINTING COTTON MATERIALS 


Gold Coast, West Africa 
Photo Misstonary Society of Basle 








WOMAN DOING BATIK 137 


Java. [See p. 343] 
Photo Otto Haeckel 


THE MATERIAL ECONOMY 


itself. It is mostly combined with tying or sewing—for fastening 
the axe-blade to the handle or for attaching the feathers to the 
arrow-shaft. 

The force of gravitation is mainly used in housebuilding, both in 
the simple wooden huts of native races, where the cross-beams of 
the roof are supported by vertical posts, and in the stone structures 
of tribes of a higher civilization. 

Alteration by mechanical means of the external character of 
materials is exemplified in beating or pounding and in fulling, 
steeping, or soaking in liquids or in fat, and finally in heating. 

The making of commodities from bark, tapa, as the Polynesians 
call it, is found all over the world. The bark is beaten with a 
grooved mallet of wood or ivory until the required degree of thinness 
and flexibility is produced. The process of fulling is used by 
North American and South American Indians for curing skins. 
The skins are pulled to and fro across a wooden stake, until they 
become flexible. 

Soaking or steeping materials in liquids or in fat is a preliminary 
to other kinds of treatment. Bark is steeped before it is beaten, 
and skins are treated with fat or brain matter before they are 
fulled. , 

Heat is another important agent for changing the character of 
various materials. It is used in boat-building to make the timber 
or the bark more tractable, and in bow-making to give the wood 
of the bow the necessary curve. When metals are heated, they 
become more pliable, and besides they can be thus melted and 
poured into a mould of suitable shape. 

There are three different processes by which chemical powers can 
be utilized to change the internal qualities of raw materials—heating, 
fermentation, and the addition of other substances. 

Chemical change produced by heat plays an important part in the 
preparation of food-stuffs, for even the native races eat their food 
boiled or grilled. Roasting meat with fat, on the other hand, is 
very rare. 

The commonest method of cooking food is that of boiling it in 
clay vessels over a fire. Some tribes, like the Botocudo in South 
America, use pieces of the stems of the larger kinds of bamboo. 
An entirely different method of boiling water is to place hot stones 
in the vessel containing the water. The vessel may be of wood, 
leather, buffalo-horn, or water-tight basketwork. 


137 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


Vegetable food or flesh is grilled either by being placed in hot 
ashes, on hot stones, in pits in the ground, or on rectangular or 
pyramidal wooden stands. 

Another frequent method is simply to pierce the game or fish 
with a spit and lay it aslant over a fire in the earth. 

Fermentation—that is, the natural decomposition of liquids con- 
taining sugar—is met with among most native races only in the 
form of spontaneous fermentation. Under certain conditions sac- 
charine liquids ferment spontaneously. But artifical fermentation, 
produced by introducing certain fungi, was practised by the ancient 
Mexicans. They added sour pelque to the agave juice which was 
to be fermented. Other races hasten fermentation in another way. 
Materials are boiled or grilled and thoroughly masticated by women 
(sometimes also by men), who then drop them into the mass that is 
to be fermented. Fermentation is, of course, largely used in the 
manufacture of the various kinds of intoxicating liquors, like the 
kashirt or tshitsha of the South Americans and the kava of the 
Polynesians, 

Very few races outside of Asiatic and European civilization know 
how to produce chemical changes by the addition of other materials. 
But the ancient Mexicans softened maize by adding quicklime 
before using the grain to make their principal daily food, the 
tortillas. And some processes of treating skins which look like the 
first beginnings of tanning should be mentioned here—the practice 
of rubbing skins with the bark of certain trees or with the urine of 
the buffalo. 

It is only very seldom that the raw material is found in the same 
place where the commodities manufactured from it are to be ulti- 
mately utilized: therefore, the process of production practically 
always involves manifold changes of the locality of the commodities. 
These changes are summed up under the designation transport of 
commodities. There are four principal cases in which such trans- 
port is necessary : 

I. When the place where the raw material is obtained is at 
a distance from the place where it is transformed. 

2. When the place where the material is transformed is at 
a distance from the place where it is to be stored. 

3. When the owner of the commodity changes his place of resi- 
dence. The transport occasioned by the constant change of 
residence on the part of nomadic tribes is often continuous, and 


138 


THE MATERIAL ECONOMY 


transport of commodities therefore plays a very important part in 
their economic life. 

4. When the commodity passes to another owner whose place of 
residence is other than that of its former owner. Transport is thus 
a necessary concomitant of exchange or sale of commodities. 

The method of transport is determined (1) by the nature of the 
commodities concerned (liquid materials, for example, call for 
measures different from those required in the transport of solids) ; 
(2) by the nature of the locality where the operation of removal is 
to be carried out. This second consideration brings up the two 
main types of transport, vzz., transport by land and transport by 
water. 

Transport by land is carried out in three different ways: (1) by 
simply dragging or pushing along the ground the object to be 
removed; (2) by placing the goods on some base, such as a dray or 
sledge, to facilitate haulage; (3) by porterage either by men or by 
beasts of burden. 

Among the feats performed by the first method of land transport 
the removal of huge building-stones from the site of the rock whence 
they were quarried to the site where they were utilized, has in all 
ages aroused the greatest admiration. The largest stones used by » 
the ancient Peruvians in the building of the fortress of Sacsa- 
huaman near Cuzco have been estimated to weigh more than 360 
tons. The chief means used to accomplish these feats of transporta- 
tion, both in letting the heavy stones roll down into the valley and 
in raising them to their appointed place in the building, was the 
inclined plane. 

A method of transport, intermediate between simple dragging 
along the ground and the use of a transportable base, is exemplified 
in the transport of tent materials among the Prairie Indians of 
North America. The tent poles were attached to dogs, or, at a 
later time, to horses by means of a belt or strap, so that one end 
dragged on the ground. These poles were fastened together by 
cross-rods, and thus served as a base for other baggage and an 
additional means of transport. A better method of the same type 
is the sledge. There are three varieties of it: the sledge of the 
Eskimo with two runners, that of the Laplander with one runner, 
and the simple toboggan of the Canadian Indians, consisting of a 
board curved high up in front. The cart of European and Asiatic 
civilization is only an improved type of this method of haulage. 


139 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


Porterage of goods is done either by man himself or by beasts of 
burden. In the former case, apart from the carrying of light 
articles in the hand, or over the shoulder, or in the girdle, there are 
three methods of human porterage : 


I. By means of a strap passing across the forehead. This 
distributes the weight between head and back. 

2. By means of a belt passing across the chest and upper- 
arm. Here the weight rests on the back. 

3. On the head. 


All kinds of domesticated animals are used as beasts of burden. 
In the New World the principal animal thus used in Peru was the 
llama; the Prairie Indians used the dog, loading him with small 
leather bags, “parfleches.’ Similar bags were carried by human 
beings, and in more recent times by horses. 

There are two main varieties of transport by water,+ according as 
the waterways are mere obstacles to land transport or are them- 
selves means of transport. In the former case the means used are 
for the most part of a very primitive kind, e.g., tree-trunks, on 
which numerous American peoples ferry their belongings across 
rivers. The Prairie Indians of North America used for this purpose 
the ‘ bullboat,’ or coracle, a circular structure of thick willow rods 
covered with buffalo-hide and propelled by floats or paddles. A 
contrast to this is found in the ‘pelota’ of the South American 
Chacos. Another method was that used by the ancient Peruvians 
and Mexicans. The latter enclosed a number of empty fruit-cases 
of the calabash-tree in a framework of cane, adding a layer of twigs 
and grass which they made as watertight as possible. 

The second type of transport by water utilizes the waterways as 
actual means of transport, and the means employed are on the 
whole of a less primitive kind. In contrast to those already 
described, these are actual ‘vessels.’ They are of two kinds, based 
on entirely different principles, the raft and the boat. 

The raft or float is based on the principle that certain materials, 
with a specific weight less than that of water, float ; and, as they 
possess a surplus of buoyancy that varies with their volume, they 
can carry a certain weight of cargo or of passengers. Rafts are 
made of three different materials. | 


1 See the comprehensive work on the vessels of America by Friederici, Die 
_ Schiffahrt der Indianer. 


140 


THE MATERIAL ECONOMY 


1. The rush raft (or balsa, as it is universally called in Peru) con- 
sists of three bundles of rushes, flags, or reeds, so fastened together 
that the centre bunch is lower than the two lateral bunches and 
forms a sort of keel. 

2. The raft of wood, composed of logs of light timber. This is 
the most seaworthy kind of raft. 

3. The skin raft, in which a platform of poles is supported by 
floats of animal skins fastened together. The ancient Peruvians 
used the skins of the sea-lion. 

The second chief variety of vessel, which is a boat rather than a 
raft, rests on the principle that all materials float when they are 
hollowed out and left closed underneath. ‘Boats,’ therefore, are 
hollow vessels with the under-surface left entire ; and they float 
on water, not because of any special quality in the material of which 
they are made, but because of their special shape. 

Schurtz draws a distinction between two kinds of boat—those 
which consist of a solid body hollowed out, and those which are 
made of extended parts so joined as to form a solid body. But 
this principle of distinction is open to objection. In many cases, 
and in almost all plank boats, these two conditions coexist. The 
only clear, sharp basis of distinction is the nature of the materials 
used, and on this basis three varieties can be distinguished. 

1. The boat or canoe of bark. This is either taken in one piece 
from a suitable tree, or several pieces of bark are sewn together, 
and are strengthened and held in position by a framework of poles. 

2. The boat of skin. This is the Eskimo vessel. It is either a 
kayak or an umiak, but only the latter can be used for transport. 
It is much larger than the other, and can take from fifteen to twenty 
people along with household utensils, tents, and other belongings. 

3. The boat of wood. The simplest form of it is the monoxyle, 
one-tree, or ‘dug-out,’ a hollowed-out tree-stem. It is used both 
on the sea and on inland lakes, and is found all over the world. 

The more developed wooden boat may be one of three varieties : 
(1) The double boat, used by the Polynesians and in Africa. Two 
boats are laid side by side and tied firmly together. (2) A simpli- 
fied form of the double boat, in which a simple beam connects the 
two, and (3) the plank boat, a monoxyle or dug-out, with its sides 
artificially heightened by planks. This latter arrangement is fre- 
quently found also in the second variety, so that both (2) and (3) 
are types of plank boats. | 


I41 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


The methods of propulsion are mainly three, punting with long 
poles, paddling, and the use of sails. 

Just as transport is rendered necessary by the distance between 
the place where the raw material is obtained and the place where it 
is consumed or used, so the difference in time between the obtaining 
of the material and the consumption of it necessitates a preservation 
of commodities. This deserves to be treated as an independent 
part of the process of production. It includes all the activities 
which aim at the preservation of goods, and the functions it per- 
forms are three in number—preservation, storage, and protection 
of commodities. 

By preservation is meant the artificial checking of the process of 
decomposition to which most vegetable and animal materials are 
liable as soon as life ceases and the power of the organism to main- 
tain itself disappears. Goods may be preserved (1) by fermentation. 
Alcoholic liquors made from vegetable materials can be kept in a 
fermented condition for a very long time. (2) By freezing. The 
ancient Peruvians kept the potato (chuvia) and other bulbs and 
tubers by freezing and drying them. (3) By grilling or toasting. 
This method was used to preserve meat and the larger species of 
fish. By repeating this process several times meat can be kept 
even in the tropics in an eatable condition. (4) By desiccating. 
This is used to preserve meat and fish. Ona larger scale this method 
was used by the North American buffalo-hunters. They made 
their “‘pemmican,’ as it was called, by cutting the buffalo-meat into 
narrow strips. These were dried and pounded to powder and 
worked up with buffalo-fat into a homogeneous mass. (5) By 
pickling in salt. This was chiefly used to preserve fish, and was 
known to the ancient Cueva in Columbia. 

But commodities must also be protected against external dangers, 
like rain, flood, sun heat, and against the damage that would be 
caused by the various larger and smaller animal pests. All measures 
used to effect this purpose are included under storage of commodities. 

A very inconvenient method is to carry the commodity in question 
about with one. But the most important place of storage is the 
house. As tillage and agriculture develop, this aspect of the service- 
ableness of the house becomes more and more important. The 
Guato Indians use their houses less as resting-places for the night, 
or as places of work, than as storage quarters for their various com- 
modities. This is by far the most prominent utility of the house 
142 


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PLATE 28 





WAGANDA BOAT ON LAKE VICTORIA 


East Africa 
Photo M. Weiss 

















OUTRIGGER BOAT AT PRINCE FREDERICK HENRY ISLAND 143 


Melanesia 
Photo H. Schmidt 


THE MATERIAL ECONOMY 


among such tribes, and had, no doubt, a decisive influence in deter- 
mining the first inception of the dwelling. In many cases the 
actual houses are used as places of storage; but in other cases 
separate store-rooms are built contiguous to the dwellings. On the 
main roads of traffic shelter cabins are built, containing indispen- 
sable stores for passing travellers. Among the Bakairi Indians on 
the Upper Xingu these cabins contain not only necessary fuel, but 
also cakes made of manioc flour for the general use of the members 
of the tribe. Similar arrangements, but on a greater scale, were 
made by the ancient Peruvians. Their shelters, tambos, as they 
called them, were even stored with food and other necessaries for 
passing armies. 

As the third function of protection of commodities, vzz., their 
defence against hostile neighbours, deals mainly with the relation 
of man to his human environment, we shall discuss that function in 
the next chapter when we come to deal with hostile intercourse 
between human beings. 


143 


GHAR Die Ratit 


VOLUNTARY HUMAN ACTIVITIES IN RELATION TO 
OTHER MEN 


THE SOCIAL LIMITATIONS OF THE SATISFACTION OF 
HUMAN WANTS 


' , Y E have seen that man, alone of all living beings, is depend- 
ent on the indirect satisfaction of his wants—that is, on 
consumption goods which are the final result of the pro- 
duction of commodities. The question arises as to whether man, 
as a single individual, is able to command the necessary pre- 
requisites of production to an extent sufficient to ensure a con- 
tinuous supply of the consumption goods which he requires for 
his existence. 

Let us take these in order. The first prerequisite of production 
is the possession of a piece of territory sufficient to allow of the 
productive process. But the power of an individual man is not 
sufficient, apart from intercourse with his fellows, to ensure the 
continuous command of this prerequisite in face of hostile powers of 
nature, including detrimental animals and plants, and in face of 
the attacks of hostile fellow-men. 

Still more patent is the inability of the individual man to secure 
the second prerequisite of production, the command of the necessary 
working power. In the first place, among all the creatures that 
come near him in the scale of life, man requires the longest time to 
reach maturity, and, secondly, in normal cases, death does not inter- 
vene till long after he has attained an age when his powers of work | 
are increasingly restricted. But even when he is in full possession 
of his strength the individual man is not always in a position to 
utilize it for his own wants. He may be deprived of liberty so to 
use it by any fellow-man stronger than himself, and be forced to use 
his strength in his captor’s service. Nor is that all. A man’s own 
productive activity, his own labour, is not an entity apart from the 
production of his fellow-men. His work has to be learned. He 
does not bring with him into the world an already perfect capacity 
for labour in the same way as he brings with him the capacity to 
144 


RELATIONS TO OTHER MEN 


satisfy his wants directly from nature; nor can he acquire such 
capacity from his own experience alone. 

The case is similar with regard to the third prerequisite of pro- 
duction—command of the necessary production commodities. The 
individual is not independent, and cannot be, of intercourse with 
his fellow-men. In the first place, the initial productive activity 
of any individual! always presupposes the existence of productive 
commodities, and these must, of course, have been produced by 
others. And, secondly, in this respect as in the other two, the 
individual is ever liable to be deprived of the use of his commodities 
at any time by one who is stronger than himself. 

Seeing, then, that the prerequisites for the production of com- 
modities are secured to the individual only on condition that he 
lives in intercourse with his fellow-men, whereas the production of 
commodities is unconditionally essential for the satisfaction of his 
wants, and therefore absolutely essential for human life itself, it 
follows that, by reason of his physical nature alone, man, as an agent 
in the economic process is conceivable only as a member of some form 
of social community. 

This inability of the human individual to exist except as a member 
of a community proves the inaccuracy of the comparison often 
drawn between primitive man and the gregarious animals. On the 
one hand, the conception ‘herd,’ or ‘flock,’ does not imply the 
social union of the separate animals composing it; and, on the other 
hand, the social limitations of human existence by no means imply 
that men must always live together after the manner of gregarious 
animals. 

Seeing that the human individual, as such, is incapable of sus- 
taining life, we cannot look upon him as the given, natural starting- 
point of organized human intercourse. This was the view held by 
the philosophers of the eighteenth and of the beginning of the 
nineteenth centuries. No one enunciated it more clearly than 
Rousseau in his Contrat social. Separate individuals, as such, can 
never establish a social community, because, if they are to continue 
to sustain life, they cannot abandon their original economic com- 
munity before the new one has been established. The foundation 
of a new community can only be achieved by the individual as 
member of a community and using the resources of that community 
—in other words, by that community itself. 

Just as little as we can make the individual the starting-point of 


K 145 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


organized human society can we start from the conception of a 
‘people ’—that is, a population-unit forming together a state—as a 
fixed entity. A ‘state’ is only one special form of human organiza- 
tion, although it is, at least at the present day, a widespread form 
of it. The only given entity from which we must start is mankind 
as a whole, and, further, mankind in Ratzel’s hologeic, 1.e., world- 
wide, meaning. Our question is, How is this world-wide humanity 
organized socially and economically—that is, into what kinds of 
social communities is it divided, and how are these related to each 
other? 

In order to get a solid basis for our study of world-wide humanity, 
we are bound to include the whole of the earth so far as it is inhabited 
by man. This inhabited world is usually called the cecumene, a 
name derived from Greek antiquity. As ethnology, according to 
our definition of it, is only concerned with that portion of mankind 
that is outside the zone of Asiatic and European civilization, we 
must, of course, take our cecumene at a stage when it was untouched 
by Asiatic and European civilization. Therefore, following Ratzel, 
we must distinguish between the present cecumene and one with 
narrower frontiers. Our cecumene will include all the regions 
which were inhabited before European civilization began to spread 
over the whole earth. This restricted cecumene, which we may 
call the ethnological cecumene, apart from a very few exceptions 
on the extreme north coasts of Asia and North America, included 
all the contiguous land masses of the five continents, and even at 
the time of the discoveries, it was only in the islands that inhabitable, 
but uninhabited, lands werefound. These areimportant facts. In 
the Atlantic Ocean, all down the coast of Africa, only the Canary 
Islands were inhabited. As this ratio of the ethnological cecumene 
to mankind (all the mainlands being inhabited, and any possibility 
of extension or restriction of the cecumene being confined to the 
islands) has remained unchanged as far back as we can go, all move- 
ments of peoples can only be considered migrations or mutual 
shiftings within a humanity that was more or less complete in itself. 
Ethnology cannot admit that it was possible for population-units, 
complete in themselves, to migrate to regions on the mainlands that 
had previously been uninhabited though habitable; nor can it 
accept such a possibility as a solution of the problem of the origin 
of the aborigines of America. 

If, therefore, we have to choose the cecumene—that is, that 


146 





SIGNAL AND DANCE DRUM OF TUKANO INDIANS 
Rio Tiquié. [See p. 154] 
Photo Koch- Grinberg 





SIGNAL DRUM OF THE BANSSA 140 
Cameroons, West Africa. Original in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin. [Sez p. 154] 


[SS1 gd gag] “UlfIeg “UInesny [eorsojouy}y oy} Ul TeUIsIIQ = ‘eoLIoUTY YION 5 
LVI a@dIH-OTvVaing NO SNVIGNJ XNOIS dO ONILINAA TVINOLOIG 














allied 


of ALV Id 


RELATIONS TOCO THER MEN 


portion of the earth’s surface inhabited by mankind as a whole—as 
the starting-point of our investigations into the social economy of 
mankind, our position is strengthened when we take along with it 
the conception of the number or density of population. The 
doctrine of Malthus that population tends to increase along with 
an increase of the means of subsistence, and, vice versa, that increase 
of population is necessarily held in check by the means of subsist- 
ence, rests on a purely deductive basis. But, apart from that, 
ethnology cannot admit that the doctrine is universally valid. To 
affirm that, with the exception of a few islands, all the habitable 
parts of the cecumene are inhabited, does not mean that all these 
regions are fully populated. But that is what Malthus’ law of 
population assumes. Among native races the opposite is much 
more frequently the case. The population is insufficient, and, as 
under-population can affect the satisfaction of wants as adversely 
as over-population, there can be little doubt that in many parts of 
the world each individual’s share of pleasurable commodities would 
be greater than it actually is if the population were denser. Two 
economically important facts have a bearing on this point. The 
first is that native races almost always endeavour to supplement | 
their own numbers from another tribe, either by peaceful means, 
such as marriage, or by violent means, such as the capture of women 
and children. The second fact is that all attempts ab extra to 
lessen their density of population is felt as an injury, and is opposed 
by every possible means. There is a close connexion between this 
fact and the widespread custom of blood-vengeance. Any loss 
which one community has suffered by the slaying of one of its 
members is balanced by making the community to which the slayer 
belongs suffer an equivalent loss of man-power. 

In connexion with the question of how the human individual feels 
the effects of his social limitations, it is important to remember that 
the individual cannot freely choose beforehand the place he is to 
occupy in the total organization of humanity. His birth and the 
course of his development determine to some extent what his 
position is to be, and this position largely determines who are to be 
his friends and who are to be his enemies, as well as what share he 
is to have of commodities and of the labour necessary for supplying 
the needs of mankind. 


1 See Max Schmidt, Grundriss, vol. i, p. 38. 
147 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


THE ORGANIZATION OF ECONOMIC INTERCOURSE 


In its ordinary meaning the term ‘economy’ denotes all those — 
arrangements and transactions whose purpose is to provide man 
with the commodities that are necessary to supply his essential 
needs. So far as this provision involves social means, means which 
result from the reciprocal relations of men, we have the social 
economy as distinguished from the material economy. 

The subject-matter of ‘ethnological political economy,’ which 
deals with the social economy of mankind outside the civilization of 
Asia and Europe, is most conveniently divided into three parts: 
(1) the organization of human intercourse ; (2) the social economic 
process; and (3) developments within the social economy. 

By ‘economic intercourse’ is meant the consociation of a number 
of human individuals, or communities, with a view to the joint 
division of the labour necessary for the supply of commodities, and 
the distribution of these commodities themselves. Put briefly, 
therefore, economic intercourse means the division of labour and 
the distribution of commodities. 

Intercourse between human individuals or communities may, of 
course, be sought and cultivated from various motives. There is 
the intercourse between man and woman, based on the sexual 
impulse ; the intercourse which has for its object the exchange of 
intellectual ideas or joint amusement. But economists usually 
employ the word ‘intercourse’ in the economic sense, that is, 
meaning economic intercourse. 

The real nature of economic intercourse will be best understood 
if we take a conjunct view of human intercourse and see how the 
various forms of it are related or opposed to each other. 

First of all, economic intercourse may be confined within narrower 
or wider limits. While on the one hand, relations of economic 
intercourse, like those that have their starting-point in modern 
European civilization, can be traced over large parts of the cecu- 
mene, there are also examples of such relations which persist within 
strikingly narrow limits. This isolation can be found even in the 
case of peoples at a comparatively high stage of civilization like 
the ancient Peruvians. Their country, thanks to its natural 
situation, was able to supply all the raw materials that were needed 
to satisfy the wants of its inhabitants. In most cases, however, it 
is small communities living at a primitive stage who obstinately 
148 


RELATIONS TO OTHER MEN 


seek to ward off all infiltration of those waves of intercourse that 
tend to pour over the cecumene. 

In the second place, relations of intercourse may last for longer 
or shorter periods of time. In some instances, both in communi- 
ties based on blood kinship and in communities where the tie is 
territorial contiguity, the duration of intercourse varies greatly. 
Economic consociation based on blood—z.e., the ‘family’ in the 
narrower sense—is in some cases restricted to the years necessary 
to rear the children to economic independence. Economic con- 
sociation between men and women based on marriage, even among 
native races, continues, at least in many cases, till the death of one 
of the spouses. Sometimes, however, as among the Bakairi on the 
Upper Xingu, it may be interrupted from time to time. A man 
may have a wife in various places, and, according to his pleasure, 
share the economic life now of one of them and now of another. In 
other cases, again, economic consociation based on consanguinity 
may cover several generations, in the form of the ‘family,’ in the 
larger sense, or of the sib, and may in this way, through the constant 
enrolment of new generations, develop into an economic consocia- 
tion of indefinite duration. 

Although, on the whole, economic consociation based on terri- 
torial contiguity lasts longest, it frequently happens that house 
communities combine temporarily into village communities, and 
these again link themselves into a kind of state organization on a 
larger or smaller scale. Frequently, population-units, who usually 
live together in house or village communities, find it necessary at 
certain seasons to scatter as families to their separate plantations, 
in order to tillthese. Where a nomad population, living in spacious 
regions, depend chiefly on what they can find by hunting or by the 
economy of gathering, they frequently combine into larger or smaller 
economic communities, which are merely temporary and due to 
the immediate economic situation, A typical example of this is 
found among the Tehuelche in the south of South America. They 
form temporary economic communities of this kind; they include 
population-units which at other times live in bitter feud, and which, 
when the larger association has been dissolved, resume their former 
hostile relations. 

Thirdly, we must distinguish between direct intercourse, in which 
there is personal intercourse between the members of the economies 
concerned, and indirect intercourse, in which each of two economies 


149 


THE PRIMIEFIVE RACES-@ baNviAN REND 


enters independently into economic relations with a third, which 
undertakes the réle of middleman in the mutual exchange of wares. 
This distinction is specially important in connexion with the 
question as to how civilization spreads. Through long-continued 
indirect intercourse of this kind, various elements of civilization 
have spread over large parts of the world, so that peoples living far 
apart, and knowing nothing of each others’ existence, have indirect 
economic intercourse with each other. | 

Fourthly, economic intercourse may be of two essentially dif- 
ferent kinds. It may either take place between individuals or 
betweencommunities. Among the various grades of economic con- 
sociation, of which the economic organization of mankind in general 
is built up, only the lowest in the series is composed of individuals 
as such. 

Fifthly, the nature of any given kind of intercourse largely 
depends on whether the population-elements by whom the relations 
are sustained are homogeneous or otherwise. The family, which is 
founded on the difference between the two sexes, has an entirely 
different character from that of associations of men or associations 
of women, which are based on sameness of sex; and the sib- 
association, comprising members of all ages, is entirely different 
from those associations whose membership is restricted to old men. 
Similarly, in the case of associations founded on territorial conti- 
guity, it is sometimes the heterogeneous elements, the strong and 
the weak, the rich and the poor, the more intelligent and the less 
intelligent, and sometimes the homogeneous elements that find 
reasons to combine for economic purposes. 

Sixthly, one of the most important distinctions is that between 
peaceful and hostile intercourse. It is on this distinction that the 
principal differences between the forms of economic association are 
based. The dualism that arises from the fact that individuals or 
communities are, on the one hand, dependent on mutual support, 
and may, on the other hand, meet as dangerous rivals, finds expres- 
sion in the two contrasted forms of intercourse between men, v7z., 
communal economy, based on community of interest, and hostile 
intercourse, based on rivalry of interest, in which men meet as dan- 
gerous rivals and fight, not only for the things provided by nature, 
but for commodities and for the free disposal of their powers of 
labour. It is only gradually that an equipoise is reached. It is 
brought about mainly by the so-called principle of economic inter- 
150 


RELATIONS TO OTHER MEN 


course, which finds clearer and clearer expression as human develop- 
ment proceeds. Like the principle of communal economy, this 
principle of economic intercourse not only operates by peaceful 
means, but also affords the widest scope for free rivalry between 
men within limits fixed by law. 

Means of intercourse, in the economic sense, are the expedi- 
ents used to bring about economic intercourse, that is, to secure 
division of labour and distribution of commodities among 
groups of human beings. The two principal kinds of intercourse, 
peaceful and hostile, have, of course, each their own special ex- 
pedients. Peaceful intercourse has its various means for securing 
mutual understanding, its ways of indicating place and computing 
time, its numbers, weights and measures, its methods of fixing 
values ; hostile intercourse has its weapons, using that word in 
the most comprehensive sense. Common to both are the means of 
communication. 

The term ‘means of communication’ + denotes all the technical 
expedients used to overcome the obstacles to intercourse that are 
caused by distance. The means for his own locomotion with which 
nature supplies man are usually called natural means of communi- 
cation. The purpose of the means of communication is to facilitate 
the transport of persons and wares, to enable them to be moved 
with the least possible expenditure of labour over the greatest 
possible distance in the shortest possible time. According to the 
manner in which this is accomplished, these are of two kinds: those 
which aim at the removal of the hindrances which the earth’s 
surface offers to locomotion, and those special measures for in- 
creasing man’s capacity for locomotion or for the better transport 
of commodities. 

Among the means of communication of the first kind are roads, 
both land roads and waterways. ‘These are not only important as 
means of communication furthering human intercourse ; they are 
also themselves the result of that intercourse. They are created 
through the habitual use by man of the same lines of direction. 
Following the economic principle, man endeavours to connect two 
places separated by distance along the path of least resistance, and 
therefore a road has two essential functions—(I) it indicates by 
special marks the path that has been thus discovered, and (2) it 


1 See Mason, Primitive Travel and Tvansportation (Annual Reports to the 
Smithsonian Institute, 1896) ; also Friederici, Die Schiffahrt der Indianer. 
Ifi 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


facilitates as much as possible movement along that road. Even 
native races frequently find obstacles in their way that require 
special measures for their removal, so that the beginnings of road- 
making, in the cases both of land roads and of waterways, can be 
traced far back. They include fascine roads through marshy ground, 
bridges for the crossing of watercourses, such bridges being very im- 
portant for the most primitive races who have no knowledge of 
boats. The two main types of bridges among primitive races are 
(1) solid bridges, the simplest form being a felled tree placed so as to 
form a connexion between the two banks of the watercourse, and 
(2) the ‘suspension’ bridge, which attained considerable develop- 
ment in ancient Peru. Waterways, although it was not till the 
development of civilization had brought about the invention of 
special agencies that they ceased to be troublesome obstacles to 
intercourse and became important paths of intercourse, are for 
native races natural ways of communication ; but even these races 
had at an early time to take special measures to render them 
more passable. They removed the vegetation that obstructed the 
channel, the fallen trees that blocked the river, and even made 
artificial waterways in the form of canals. 

Another aid to intercourse is found in the places of halt and rest. 
Their origin is to be sought in the frequently repeated halts at con- 
venient places. These places were rendered more suitable for their 
purpose by the erection of shelter huts, in which passing travellers 
can find not only shelter and fuel, but also a supply of the most 
necessary food. 

The second kind of means of communication consists of special 
arrangements for increasing man’s own capacity for locomotion. 
Many of these, like sledges, carts, and boats, have already been 
dealt with in the chapter on material economy and the transport 
of commodities. This second kind includes also those which are 
attached to the human foot in order to increase man’s power of 
locomotion. (1) Shoes or sandals, if these can be considered more 
than mere articles of clothing. (2) Snowshoes, the use of which is, of 
course, confined to certain climates. There are two kinds of snow- 
shoe. One is restricted to the Old World, and is used for gliding 
over snow surfaces ; the other, found chiefly in America, although 
it is also used in the Old World, serves to prevent the wearer from 
sinking in deep snow. It is a wooden hoop, circular or pear-shaped, 
the space inside the circumference being filled with plaited strips of 
152 


RELATIONS TO OTHER MEN 


hide. (3) The ice-shoe, or skate, intended to prevent slipping on 
smooth ice. 

The great development of means to enable men to understand 
each other is in keeping with the growth of economic interdepend- 
ence. These are of two kinds, of which one appeals to the sense 
of hearing, the other to the sense of sight. 

The most important means of the former kind are those which 
make use of human sounds, above all, human speech. Human 
speech, like roads of communication, is the result of the intercourse 
of man with man, and as soon as it came into existence it became 
one of the most important means of intercourse. Seeing that 
human intercourse is not at all confined to those between whom 
there is a relationship by blood or race, neither of these relationships 
can be inferred from community of speech. The only inference 
that can be drawn from linguistic affinities between peoples is that 
there are, or have at some time been, direct or indirect relations 
between them. 

The constant change to which all forms of speech are liable only 
concerns us here so far as it is due to continuous social changes. 
The evolution of languages, in the sense of phonetic change due to 
linguistic usage, belongs to the sphere of philology. What we have 
to consider here is, in the first place, those cases where population- 
units adopt another language than that which they have hitherto 
spoken. Some of these are merely changes of related dialects; others 
concern languages which belong to entirely different groups. Inone 
case in South America a native tribe, the Kaua, changed its language 
twice within a brief period. Of course, when a tribe thus ceases to 
use its own language and adopts that of another tribe changes in the 
language itself are involved, and there can be no doubt that the 
multiplicity of dialects found in some linguistic groups, the Arawak 
languages of South America, for example, is largely due to one and 
the same language having been adopted by several tribes that 
originally spoke different languages. Much depends, therefore, on 
whether it is an Indian tribe speaking a Tupi dialect or one speak- 
ing a Ges dialect that adopts the Arawak language. In both cases 
there will be extensive dialectical differences. 

Again, the development of languages is also powerfully affected by 
the bilingualism or multi-lingualism which is economically impor- 
tant in those regions where disintegration of languages goes on, and 
where, indeed, close intercourse between different communities is 


153 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


only rendered possible by such disintegration. It is also this multi- 
lingualism that explains the rise of argots or lingos within one and 
the same economic community, e.g., argots used by women, by | 
special classes, or by secret societies. The same is true of the rise 
and development of universal languages among tribes which have 
each a language of its own. We have examples of this in some Tupi 
dialects, like the Guarani in Paraguay, or the Lingoa geral on the 
Amazons, or the Malay language in the Indian Archipelago. 

But there are other means of achieving mutual understanding, 
based on the sense of hearing, beside language. There is the utter- 
ance of notes or noises for signalling purposes. These may be merely 
human sounds, or they may be notes produced by means of special 
instruments, such as whistles, horns, or drums. Important in- 
struments of this kind are large drums, made of hollowed-out 
wooden cylinders, perforated with two holes. The signals made by 
the negroes of West Africa with these instruments have led to the 
formation of an actual ‘ drum language,’ in which words are indi- 
cated by various combinations of a lower and a higher note. Such 
combinations can also be imitated with the mouth.? 

The means for achieving mutual understanding based on the 
sense of sight are of two kinds—(1) the language of signs and ges- 
tures, and (2) objectifying an idea by means of some natural material. 
The supreme form of the latter is writing. Of other ways of thus 
indicating one’s meaning, fire-signalling perhaps comes nearest to 
the language of signs and gestures. 

Ideas can be objectified in many ways. The distinctive outward 
signs may either be actual pictures of the objects indicated, or, like 
notched sticks or knotted strings, they may be something which is 
only indirectly associated with the objects. The chief methods are 
the following : 

1. Place marks, These are used to call attention to something, 
or to convey information, and they may be of the simplest kind, 
such as a green twig bent or doubled to indicate a route, and so on. 

2. Marks of ownership affixed to articles. Among tribes who 
raise cattle the commonest form is to mark the cattle with incisions 
or brands in proof of ownership. 

3. Badges or marks, indicating the social position of a person. 


1 See Dr R. Lasch, Uber Sondersprachen und ihre Entstehung (Vienna, 1897); 
Max Schmidt, Die Aruaken; R. Betz, Die Trommelsprache der Duala (Berlin, 
1898). 


154 


KEEA TIONS: EO°(OLHER* MEN 


These consist of special ways of painting the body, tattooing, 
wearing special dress, or wearing trophies. 

4. Notched sticks, very common among primitive tribes, and some- 
times used for counting. 

5. Knotted strings, used in many regions. In ancient Peru they 
were called quipu, and were apparently chiefly used for statistical 
purposes. 

Writing, which has attained its highest perfection among the 
civilised peoples of Asia and Europe, is found among primitive races 
only in the form of pictorial writing. In the wider sense, pictorial 
writing denotes any form of communication by means of pictorial 
representation. Such representation may be of almost any kind 
and be done with almost any material. It may be made by paint- 
ing or engraving. It may be done on almost any materiai, but 
preferably on some smooth surface. The Australians use smooth 
plaques of wood; the South American Indians use the inside of 
buffalo-hides or pieces of bark. Drawings on sand, in the form of 
sketch-maps, were discovered by Karl von den Steinen, and rock- 
drawings, both in caves and on open rocks or boulders, have been 
found. Andrée and, at a later time, Koch-Griinberg and Danzel, 
have expressed the opinion that the numerous rock-drawings made 
by the primitive peoples of South America are merely the sportive 
expressions of a naive artistic sense, and that they rarely or never 
have any deeper meaning. This opinion cannot be maintained. 
There can be no doubt that they were meant to convey definite ideas 
to others, and are therefore genuine examples of pictorial writing in 
the wider sense of that term. 

If, however, we use the term pictorial writing in the narrower 
sense, and mean by it the rendering of definite sounds in a pictorial 
Way, 2.e., using the pictures, without reference to their original 
meaning, to indicate a definite sound, that is a form of communi- 
cation unknown among primitive peoples. It should be added, 
however, that the period of the discoveries found the ancient 
Mexicans and the Maya tribes at an interesting stage of transition 
toward a pictorial writing of that kind. 

The combination of means of communication and means of 
mutual understanding provides all that is needed for the develop- 
ment of a news service, and this means much in the economic life 
even of native races. In the larger negro empires the chieftains 
have their messengers. In ancient Mexico, and in Peru at the time 


155 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


of the Inca dominion, there was a well-organized intelligence service. 
Runners, called charquis, specially trained for the work and re- 
lieving each other at comparatively short distances, are said to have - 
carried intelligence throughout the wide Inca empire at a speed of 
180 English miles per day. 

Every act of economic intercourse is definitely related to place 
and time. The very conception of a market implies the existence of 
a fixed place and time for the exchange of commodities. Even in 
the economic life of native races some such indications of place and 
time are necessary, although they are given in other ways than by 
the numerical computations familiar to us. 

We have already seen how native races indicate the position of a 
place. Language itself provides a suitable means of conveying such 
indications ; the places in question can be called by special names. 
Among native races almost every rapid, every projecting rock, 
every habitation, every plantation has its own name. Indeed, it 
is the separate parts of a locality that receive names first, and there 
is often no name for larger islands and greater rivers as wholes. 
Other methods of indicating places, without the use of numbers or 
measurements, are the place marks of which we have already spoken 
and naming the path or road that leads to a place. There is no 
need, therefore, as yet to indicate the exact situation of a place by 
direction and distance. This is the meaning of the sketch-maps, 
drawn or scratched on a flat surface of wood or bark or sand. The 
peculiar sea-charts, made of latticed cane, used by the Marshall 
Islanders, do not profess to give the situation and distance of the 
various islands, but only to indicate the course of the sea-currents 
which mean so much for the islanders when sailing. 

In the same way the indications of time, which also appear far 
back in the economic life of primitive races, do not, at first, involve 
actual time-measurements, although, of course, the day, as a natural 
time-unit, seems to have been so used at a very primitive stage. 
When an Indian is asked how much time a certain journey will take, 
and replies by describing with his hand an arc corresponding to a 
day’s course of the sun in the sky, and then makes the gesture of 
sleep, repeating these gestures as many times as days are required 
for the journey, we must not straightway infer that he means to 
indicate the number of days. It is far more in keeping with the 
Indian’s concrete way of thinking that he should connect with his 
gestures actual representations of the course of the journey and be 


156 


RELATIONS TO OTHER MEN 


seeking to express these. The fact that the majority of primitive 
men are unable to tell their age proves that they cannot compute 
time. For the most part they employ natural phenomena, or 
events of other kinds, to indicate points of time. The successive 
seasons, marked off from each other by differences of climate and 
vegetation, supplied a starting-point for indicating times, and, by 
and by, for computing time and dividing it. All natural pheno- 
mena—the arrival of the rainy season, the song-time of the birds, 
the budding of the trees, the changes in the firmament—were used 
for fixing the seasons, with the result that the number of the seasons 
is not always the same among different races. Before men could 
divide time arithmetically, or connect the course of the moon with 
the path of the sun, or conceive of the months as parts of the year, 
and of the days as parts of the month, a higher knowledge of 
numbers and a better acquaintance with their use were necessary, 
especially as the lunar year does not correspond exactly with the 
solar year. The construction of a calendar presupposes a fairly 
high degree of civilization, and when we find it among races low in 
the scale we must conclude that it has been adopted from peoples 
at a higher stage. 

Although arithmetic plays a very small part in the material side 
of the collective life of primitive peoples, even their intercourse 
requires some method of reaching a mutual understanding regarding 
actual numbers of persons and things. To this extent, therefore, 
the ability to count must be looked upon as a universal possession 
of mankind, although in many cases it is very low. It is a mistake 
to infer from a people’s vocabulary of numbers the degree of their 
skill in figures. In connexion with counting, native races make far 
more use of signs and gestures than of articulate speech, and make 
great use of their fingers and toes. The Bakairi Indians on the 
Upper Xingu employ their fingers even when dealing with small 
numbers. In addition to this gesture language, these Indians 
actually use only two articulate numeral words, tokali (one) and 
ahdge (two). The number 3 is then 2 + I, ahdge tokali, although 
the word ahewao is also used for three. Four is 2 + 2, ahdge ahdge ; 
5is2+2-+1 ahdge ahdge tokali ; and 6 is 2 + 2 + 2, ahdge ahdge 
ahdge. There are no numerals beyond 6, and calculation is con- 
tinued by using the other fingers and thereafter the toes. That this 
method of counting on fingers and toes must have been the usual 
method among primitive peoples is proved by the wide distribution 


157 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


of the quinary system, and the special importance of the numbers 
5, 10, 20 as units to form smaller groups of days or weeks, and the 
division of the year into months. It is also significant that the 
words for § and 10 are frequently identical with the words for hand 
and foot. Among other means of counting may be mentioned the 
counting-sticks of the North-west American Indians, and the notched 
tallies and knotted strings already mentioned (p. 155). 

The practical use of units of weight and measurement presupposes 
a somewhat advanced degree of arithmetical knowledge, and is, 
therefore, not found till a comparatively late stage. Units of 
measurement are found in various values—the pace, arm-length, 
spear-length, the span, the finger-length; for smaller measures 
the nail-length, and, for measure of capacity, a handful. Of larger 
units of measurement we may name here the bucha of some Amur 
tribes, meaning the distance at which the horns of an ox cannot be 
separately distinguished. 

Solid weights seem to have been first used in connexion with the 
weighing of the precious metals, after these had come to be used as 
money. Considerations of space forbid a detailed description of 
the various forms of scale used, but mention may be made of the 
gold balance used by the Ashanti negroes with its metal weights 
in the shape of figures, the very dainty small balances used in 
ancient Peru, and the so-called Roman balance found in many 
regions. 

The character of money ! is acquired by all the commodities used 
as mediums of exchange in connexion with the transport of com- 
modities and also, at the same time, as measures of value. Money, 
in the strict sense, only comes to be used when exchange trade has 
been organized and private business develops, and therefore we 
postpone discussion of its origin and its real nature till a later 
chapter. We are concerned here only with the various kinds of 
goods which gradually come to be used by various peoples as 
universal measures of value and media of exchange. Schurtz 
divides money into two kinds—the money used in home transac- 
tions and that used in dealing with other peoples. This classifi- 
cation is irrelevant, because, in the first place, the narrower and wider 
economic communities are so intermingled among primitive peoples 
that it is impossible to draw a sharp distinction between ‘home’ 


1 See Schurtz, Grundriss einer Entstehungsgeschichte des Geldes (Weimar, 1898). 
Thilenius, ‘‘ Primitives Geld,” in Archiv fiir Anthropologie, vol. xviii. 


158 


PLATE 31 








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Chimbote. Original in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 


RELATIONS -TO OTHER MEN 


and ‘foreign’ money; and, secondly, many peoples use the very 
same commodities in the very same way for both purposes. 

Of the numerous kinds of money, differing in the material of 
which they are made, we mention first the many kinds of shells. 
These are sometimes used in their natural form, like the ‘ cowries’ 
which were originally exported from the Maldive Islands, and some- 
times in the form of polished beads. European beads of coloured 
glass have long been adopted as money by many native races. The 
ancient Venetian glass beads, the “Agri beads,’ found their way in 
great numbers to Africa. Metal money is also used by many 
peoples outside of Asiatic and European civilization. Copper 
money, in the form of small knives, was in circulation in ancient 
Mexico. Cattle area common form of money among nomad peoples, 
and other commodities, such as salt, slaves, hides, cotton-stuffs, 
cocoa-beans, are also employed as media of exchange and as measures 
of value. 

It has already been pointed out that all means of communication 
serve alike the purposes of peaceful and hostile intercourse. Special 
importance attaches both to the horse, which is useful for war as well 
as for peace, and to boats, which are used by seafaring peoples as 
means of fighting when enemies are met at sea. Specific means of 
hostile intercourse are of two kinds—(1) movable, z.e., weapons in the 
widest sense, and (2) immovable, such as fortification works. 

Despite the essential difference of purpose between weapons of 
warfare and the tools used in the production of commodities, there is 
frequently great similarity between the two. The only explanation 
of this is that the commodities which were originally used only 
as means of production were also used as weapons when they were 
suitable for that purpose. 

According to the purpose they are meant to serve, weapons are 
divided into two classes: weapons of attack and weapons of defence ; 
but there are also weapons which are intermediate between the two. 

Weapons of attack, again, are divided into distance weapons, or 
missiles, and hand-to-hand weapons; and the former may be either 
simple weapons, 7.e., hurled by the hand or arm, or compound 
weapons, hurled by the aid of some contrivance. The principal 
missile weapons are : 

The throwing-club, usually a short, round stick, thickened at one 
end into a knob or cup-shape. 

The throwing-stick. The best-known form of this is the Australian 


ee 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


boomerang, shaped so as to return toward the thrower, if it misses 
its mark, or to rebound with accelerated speed when it hits the 
ground. 

The throwing-knife or tron. This is an improved throwing-stick 
made of a different material, and is often grotesquely shaped. 

The javelin. This is either a simple weapon, 7.e., thrown from the 
hand, or a compound weapon, 2.e., discharged with the aid of some 
contrivance, having a small loop attached to it, or a specially shaped 
stick like the “spear-thrower.’ This has already been described 
among the hunting implements (p. 119). 

Bow and arrow—probably the weapon most widely distributed 
among native races. 

The sling, which hurls a stone or stone bullet. 

The bola. The difference between this and the simple sling is that 
the stone bullets, from one to three in number, are attached to the 
thong or string. 

The principal hand-to-hand weapons are these : 

The club. It is asimple wooden weapon, either flat or round. It 
often strongly resembles other wooden tools. The flat variety is 
sometimes like a paddle or a digging stick or a spear-thrower ; the 
round type resembles a pestle or a bast-beater. To increase its 
striking power, the head is sometimes loaded with a stone ring, of 
“morning-star,’ shape, or a stone is wedged into it; or, again, its 
edge is studded with shark teeth (in Oceania), or with splinters of 
obsidian (in ancient Mexico). 

The axe. The best-known form of this is the North American 
tomahawk. 

The sword. ‘This is the result of a gradual transition from the 
club, especially the edged club. It is only found, of course, among 
peoples familiar with the working of metals. 

Thrusting weapons, 1.e., the lance and the dagger. The gora of 
the Melanesians has a special strap arrangement, under which the 
hand is inserted to give a more secure hold. 

The principal weapons of defence are the shield, coat of mail, and 
helmet. As the function of defensive armour is to ward off the 
blows of offensive weapons, its form and character vary with the 
nature of the latter. But, as hostile encounters frequently take 
place between races who use different kinds of weapons, this corre- 
spondence between defensive and offensive weapons does not 
result from the kinds of weapons used within one tribe, but is 
160 , 














TAMBERMA CASTLE 


Togoland, Western Sudan 
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RoOoF OF TAMBERMA CASTLE 160 
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PLATE 34 











CAVE-DWELLINGS IN COLORADO 
From a photograph in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 











ZUNI INDIAN SETTLEMENT I6I 
North America, From a photograph in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 


RELATIONS TO OTHER MEN 


usually determined by the type of offensive weapons used by hostile 
tribes. | 

Mention should also be made here of the use of domesticated 
animals for fighting purposes. The Hottentots used to have 
specially trained animals, which they let loose at the proper moment 
on theenemy. We have already mentioned the use of the horse as 
a charger. 

In addition to these means of defence against hostile attack, 
there are the fortification works. These are intended either to 
defend the actual dwelling-place, or to be places of refuge in case 
of hostile attack. The latter include the various kinds of tree 
fortresses. 

A dwelling-place may already be fortified by its natural position. 
The well-known cliff dwellings in the deep cafions of New Mexico 
and Arizona, and the settlements built on the dome-shaped peaks 
of almost inaccessible hills in various parts of Africa, are examples 
of this kind of natural defence. But fortification may also be due 
to the method of constructing the dwelling-place. This is the case 
with the dwellings of the Pueblo Indians. These are combined into 
one large group of buildings, with outside walls several stories in 
height falling away precipitously, and scalable only with the aid of 
ladders. Similar to these are the tembe in Africa. In heir simplest 
form these are simple quadrilaterals. Again, fortification may 
consist of a protective rampart and moat surrounding the settle- 
ment, with palisade fences, or, where the civilization is higher, with 
stone walls. Gigantic works of this kind were built by the ancient 
Peruvians for defensive purposes. Two of the most outstanding 
are the fortress of Sacsahuaman, near Cuzco, and the even more 
magnificent fortress of Ollantay-tambo. 

In the section on economic intercourse we have already men- 
tioned the three principles of organization, on whose interconnexion 
human intercourse is based—the communal economy, the hostile 
economy, and the trade economy. 

The communal economy is based on the tendency of a given 
population-unit to live peacefully together, avoiding any hostile 
disturbance of the economic process. Being based on a community 
of interests, this type is in direct contrast to hostile intercourse, 
involving the use of means of violence. Indeed, the contrast is so 
complete that where the one ends the other begins, and vice versa. 


Between these two comes the third form of intercourse, the trading 
L 161 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


economy. It is intermediate in character, bridging the contrasts 
between the other two. Like hostile intercourse, it is based on 
mutual rivalry of individuals or communities, but it also shares the 
peaceful character of consociation, because it is based on principles 
that are valid for the whole community, and, operating by legal 
means, carries on rival intercourse without having recourse to acts 
of violence. 

Peaceful economic life, such as that now described, is only possible 
in a community when the intercourse of its members has been 
brought under some kind of regulation. Elsewhere I have endea- 
voured to show that all the rules actually underlying human inter- 
course are legal rules, which, when taken together, constitute the 
conception of law in the economic sense, as distinguished from law 
in the sense of jurisprudence, which works in a wider field. The 
rules that govern the life of a community are, therefore, legal 
maxims, and the economic community is at the same time a legal 
community. How such rules arise, and how they are maintained, 
are questions that are irrelevant for the conception of law and of 
communal life based on law. Within a community law has two 
functions to fulfil, (1) to frame rules for the regulation of the peace- 
ful life of its own members, and (2) to lay down rules for the regu- 
lation of economic intercourse between its own members and those 
of other communities, and, at a higher stage of civilization, for the 
similar regulation of the rival interests of its own members. In the 
former case we have what is called public law, 7us publicum ; in 
the latter, we have civil law, jus privatum. 

The ultimate aim of public law, from the economic point of view, 
is to secure a distribution of control over labour and commodities 
that shall be independent of the will of the parties concerned. Of 
course, at higher stages of civilization, it also seeks to regulate by 
law the means necessary to guarantee this distribution, and involves 
what is called procedure and criminal jurisprudence. 

In considering the manner in which control over labour is dis- 
tributed in communal life, we must begin with the fact that the 
individual is not, as a matter of course, entitled to the right of 
control over his own labour. In communal life there is always 
someone who, in virtue of his acknowledged position of authority 
in the community, has the right of control over the labour of his 
subordinates. For example, the head of a family controls the 
labour of the members of the family. This person, in turn, may be 
162 


RECA LIONS TO; OLHER: MEN 


subordinate to the head of another consociation superior to his 
own, and he, again, may be subordinate to a still higher authority. 
The head of a family is subordinate to the head of the ‘house,’ and 
he to the head of the village, and he, again, to the supreme head. 
Even in cases where in ordinary circumstances the control of labour 
is determined by the principle of economic intercourse, this aggre- 
gate form of organization of labour is frequently still maintained in 
the conjoint use of armed forces, as being a natural organization of 
the conjunct fighting power. 

In considering the distribution of control over commodities we 
have to distinguish between pleasurable commodities and produc- 
tive commodities. With regard to the former, it may be laid down 
as the prevalent principle among native races living for the most 
part in communal life that the person who has control over the 
labour of others is also responsible for seeing that these others are 
supplied with the pleasurable commodities required for their sup- 
port. But, on the other hand, every person in such a community 
who draws his sustenance from the commodities of the community 
must bear his shareinits labours. Thus, the distribution of control 
over pleasurable commodities corresponds on the whole with the 
distribution of control over labour, and the hierarchy of control is 
accompanied by a hierarchy of responsibility. 

Coming to the distribution of control over productive com- 
modities, we have to draw a distinction between cases where it is a 
question of land and those in which movable productive goods, like 
implements or raw materials, are concerned. In the former case, 
distribution is so regulated that each family receives from consti- 
tuted authority the land that it has to till. 

In the case of movable goods, the constituted authority has to 
supply his people with these, so far as they are unable to supply 
themselves. But it should be noticed that the distribution of goods 
for use is, even at a primitive stage and far back in time, carried out 
on the principle of economic intercourse or trade. 

The ultimate aim of legal enactments regulating economic trade 
relations is, in like manner, the distribution of control over labour 
and commodities. But, in contrast to the distribution in communal 
life, this distribution is voluntary on the part of those concerned, 
and is not regulated by any communal authority. The assumption 
underlying all such voluntary economic relations—all trading—is 
that a given member of the legal community controls, by virtue of 


163 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


his recognized authority, some amount or kind of goods or labour. 
This assumption holds good, of course, for the community as such, 
so that it is at liberty to enter into trade relations, through its head 
or representative, with other similar communities. But trade 
relations within the community are not on the same footing as trade 
relations with outsiders. For trading within the community, 
special regulations—1z.e., legal enactments—are necessary, and in 
obedience to these the supreme communal authority waives its 
right of control over some part of its commodities—and, at a higher 
stage, over some part of its labour—and hands it over to subordinate 
members or subordinate consociations. In so doing it creates the 
conception of property. Property, therefore, is purely a creation 
of civil law, and cannot be carried over, as is.often done, into com- 
munal life. Property, as such, is created when a community lays 
down certain principles, allowing to certain individuals unfettered 
control over some amount and kind of commodities, and, at a later 
stage, of labour. The right of property is, therefore, guaranteed 
by an authority derived from the community, whereas possession 
only means the tenancy of a commodity recognized and guaranteed 
by communal authority. 

What persons shall be allowed to have control over commodities, 
and which commodities shall be free for traffic or trade, 7.¢., shall be 
res in commercio, are matters that have to be decided by communal 
trade regulations. Among most native races who have attained 
this stage of economic intercourse, part of the population is excluded 
from this privilege, because it isnot free: they areslaves. Similarly, 
among native races, the range of commodities which are left free for 
trade is still very limited—land and other immovable goods are 
reserved. It is only at a higher stage that these also are made 
available for trade, but it is usually only a very clearly defined class 
of the population who are allowed this control over immovable 
commodities. 

To understand clearly how life is organized in the communal stage 
of civilization, we must leave out of account all the effects—and such 
effects are never altogether absent—that are in any degree due 
to the principle of economic intercourse. Among the communal 
features that remain, after the deduction of all those that are due to 
the free will of the individuals concerned, two are of special import- 
ance—(I) that which is based on blood-relationship and (2) that 
which is based on territorial contiguity. There are also other 


164. 


RELATIONS TO OTHER MEN 


matters, such as the equality of the sexes, grades of age, succession 
of generations, ranks, and callings.1 

In connexion with the principle of organization that is based on 
blood-relationship, it is important to notice that in purely communal 
life, intercourse between man and woman which creates con- 
sanguinity is not the result of free determination of the parties. On 
the contrary, it is based on communal principles which lay down 
beforehand fixed rules as to which members of the community are 
to enter upon this relation. Therefore, marriage, in the sense of an 
institution based on the voluntary agreement of the parties con- 
cerned, has no existence at the stage with which we are dealing. 
In communal life sexual intercourse is altogether based on principles 
that have their origin in the organization of communal life, whereas 
economic marriage gives rise to economic communities based on 
consanguinity. 

In order to distinguish it from what is called the ‘individual- 
istic’ relationship based on economic marriage, the special type of 
relationship that is based on communal organization is usually 
called ‘classificatory.’ Within this classificatory type, which is, or 
was, widely current among the aborigines of North America and 
Australia, Kohler distinguishes three systems of kinship, which he 
calls (1) the pure form, (2) the Ostel form, and (3) the Choctaw 
form. The first of these three is shown in the accompanying 
scheme, which has been drawn up on the basis of the facts that are 
known, in order to illustrate what is meant by ‘classificatory kin- 
ship’ (see Fig. 7). 

The scheme shows five successive generations. Each generation 
is divided into an A group and a B group, the males being denoted 
by A or B, and the females by a or b. In communal life, in each 
generation, the women of group A, 12.e., aaa, marry the men of 
group B, 2.e, BBB, and, vice versa, the women bbb marry the men 
AAA. In accordance with the principle of descent in the maternal 
line that prevails in communal life, all the children of AAA men and 


1 On organization based on kinship see Morgan, Consanguinity and Affinity ; 
Joseph Kohler, Zuy Urgeschichte dey Ehe. Totemismus, Gruppenehe und 
Mutterrecht ; Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage (London) ; Grosse, 
Die Formen der Familie und der Wirtschaft ; Dorsey, Omaha Sociology (Washing- 
ton). 

For totemism see J. G. Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy (London, 1910), 4 vols. ; 
Ankermann, Verbreitung und Formen des Totemismus in Afrika (1915). 

On theories of the state see Kohler, Lehrbuch der Rechtsphilosophie (1917) ; 
Max Schmidt, Grundriss, vol. i, p. 166. 


165 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


bbb women belong to group B, and similarly the children of BBB 
men and aaa women are members of group A in the next generation. 
As this process is repeated from generation to generation, the groups 
A and B are related to each other as cousins. 

The essential difference between this ‘classificatory’ form of 
kinship and the ‘individualistic’ form is that, in relationship, and 
therefore also in name, all the children of the same group in the 
same generation are looked upon as a unit, apart from distinctions 


A,A; "a o,o; a, Lb, b, b, 8,8, 8, 
Generation I 

8, B, 8, b,b, b, 33 92a A, Az 4, 
Generation I 

A; A,A; 929392 b,b, 5, | 6;8; 8; 
Generation If | 

By, B, af bd, b, O4 D4 Py A,A, A, 
Generation 

A, A.A. 959595 be be bs B; say 


Generation V 


Fig. 7. SCHEME TO ILLUSTRATE ‘CLASSIFICATORY KINSHIP’ 


ofsex. For example, the children of group A of the third generation 
stand in the same relation to all the male members of one of the 
other groups, to B,, Ag, B,, and Ay, and similarly to all the female 
members of one of the other groups, Dg, ay, D4, and a4. 

If, in order to avoid the kinship names used in the individualistic 
form of marriage, which are inapplicable here, we take the names 
used in the Omaha language, we have, starting with A,As;Az, the 
following relationships: AsA;Az, call each other zice (brother), 
they call a,a,a, itange (sister), B,B,B, idadi (father), a,a,a, inaha 
(mother), A,A,A, imegi (maternal uncle), dybyb, ittimi (paternal 
aunt), B,B,B, winge (son), b4b,b, yange (daughter), A,A,A, ttacka 
(nephew), and a,a,4a, itija (niece). As the groups A and B are 


166 


RELATIONS TO OTHER MEN 


distinguished only within three generations As;AsA, call both 
A,A,A, and B,B,B, by the same name ztaga (grandfather or 
ancestor), and they similarly call a,a,a, and b,b,b, tka (grandmother). 
Both A;A;A, and B;B;B; they call ttakpa (grandchild). 

In connexion with Morgan’s researches and the copious materials 
collected in “‘Morgan’s tables,” this system of classificatory kinship 
has led many to infer that totemistic group-marriage was the 
starting-point of all subsequent development. ‘Group-marriage’ 
means that two groups intermarry in such a way that all the men 
of one group have all the women of the other group promiscuously. 
The main objection to this hypothesis, which is supported by 
Kohler and contested by Westermarck and Grosse, is that at the 
present day no people is known among whom such a system of 
marriage prevails, and that we have no direct evidence that any 
such system ever existed anywhere. The hypothesis of ‘group- 
marriage,’ in fact, is merely an interpretation put upon a form of 
marriage and is founded on incorrect inferences from the kinship 
names used in the classificatory system. The mere fact that the 
classificatory system determines the circle of women whom the men 
of another circle are to have as the mothers of their children tells 
us nothing of the form of sexual intercourse between the members 
of the two circles thus destined for each other. Even in communal 
life sexual intercourse could be regulated on the same lines as are 
followed in economic marriage. This sexual intercourse might be 
either monogamous or polygamous or even polyandrous, and the 
upbringing of the children might, even at that level, be the appointed 
work of one pair of parents. No sound arguments, therefore, can 
be drawn from classificatory kinship for the existence of Morgan’s 
“sroup-marriage.’ 

The scheme of the classificatory system given above clearly rests 
on a principle that is very important for communal life based on 
blood-kinship, viz., that the members of a sib-group do not inter- 
marry with the members of the same sib-group, but with those of 
a different one. This principle of exogamy, which is sometimes 
carried so far as to forbid marriage between members of the same 
tribe, is contrasted with endogamy, the most outstanding example 
of which is found in the intermarriage of brothers and sisters, prac- 
tised amongst the ancient Persians and Egyptians, as well as by the 
ancient rulers of Peru, but which is found hardly anywhere else. 

The principle of exogamy involves the necessity of determining 


167 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


by regulation to whom the offspring shall belong, 1.e., whether the 
children are to belong to the fathers or to the mothers. A priori 
either way is possible, and even although mother-right is by far the 
most prevalent form of organization in communal life, there are 
kinship groups among the Australians which are based on father- 
right. Since Bachofen pointed out the wide distribution of 
mother-right, there has been considerable discussion as to the 
priority of mother-right and father-right. Two points are of great 
importance here: (1) What is called matriarchate, 7.e., the pre- 
dominance of the wife, has nothing to do with the question of 
mother-right ; and (2) although the history of mankind reveals 
cases of transition from mother-right to father-right, and no example 
of transition from the latter to the former, it must not be inferred 
that the priority always and everywhere lies with mother-right. 
At the stage of economic marriage the free will of the husband has 
always come into operation much earlier than that of the wife, and 
wherever economic marriage became stronger within communal 
life and increasingly determined the kinship relations, father-right 
gained in importance. Therefore, wherever mother-right was 
formerly predominant, the appearance of economic marriage was 
bound to be followed by a transition to father-right. That does not 
mean, however, that there may not have been cases in which early 
communal life was governed on the system of father-right. 

Another matter, closely connected with the organization based 
on kinship, must be here briefly referred to, v2z., what is called 
totemism. This term was first introduced in 1869 by the Scottish 
scholar McLennan.! Frazer and Ankermann both define totemism 
as the belief in an intimate relationship between a sib-group on the 
one hand and some natural object or commodity on the other. In 
most cases this object is an animal ; sometimes it is a plant ; more 
rarely an inanimate object.2 Totemism is widely distributed 
throughout the world, and its chief social significance lies in this, 
that the members of a totem community believe that they are 
descended from their totem and call themselves by its name. 

For the members of a community based on consanguinity, indirect 


1 The word ‘‘totemism’”’ is derived from the Ojibway word totem, which means 
the badges or ‘‘ arms ”’ of the Ojibway groups based on consanguinity. 

2 In this sense totem refers to only one of the three kinds of totems dis- 
tinguished by Frazer, and is called clan-totem to distinguish it from the other 
two kinds, sex-totem, which applies either to all the males or all the females of a 
community, and individual-totem, which is restricted to one single person. 


168 


RELATIONS TO OTHER MEN 


satisfaction of wants, t.e., an economy, is only possible when they 
have in one form or another a portion of land for their support. 
But by no means every blood-kin group has its own separate 
domain. On the contrary, several such consanguineous groups 
usually manage a domain in common, or, again, the members of the 
same consanguineous group, e.g., of the same totem, are distributed 
over several non-contiguous domains. There is, therefore, a 
second principle of organization, different from that of consan- 
guinity. It is independent of blood-ties and rests on a territorial 
basis. The best name for it is the ‘territorial principle.’ All 
organized communal life is based on the co-operation of these two 
principles, and it depends on the nature of the material economy 
of the community whether the one or the other is to predominate. 
The territorial principle becomes predominant only in communities 
that engage in tillage. 

Of the types of communal life based on territoriality, three are 
specially important : the house community, the village community, 
and the state community, or, more shortly, the state. The house 
community may at the same time be a village community, 2.e., the 
village may consist of only one house; and, similarly, the village 
community, when it is the supreme community of a population- 
unit, may at the same time be a state community. The three 
types are, therefore, not necessarily mutually exclusive. 

A frequent form of house community is the sib-house community. 
A consanguineous group, a ‘sib,’ or ‘family’ in the large sense, live 
under one roof. By a village community is meant a population- 
unit which lives together and cultivates a definite territory ; and 
the name ‘state,’ in the economic sense, means the supreme 
economic or legal unit in a community based on territory. Seeing 
that a state is an economic community based on territory, and 
therefore involves a definite state domain, communities based on 
blood-relationship can never in themselves form a state. On the 
other hand, because the state is a supreme economic community, 
and is therefore sovereign, only a community that is supreme 
among several subordinate communities can be called a state. 
Where several village communities exist independently side by side, 
each separate one is a state, but when they unite to form one 
sovereign whole they lose their character as states in favour of the 
new creation. We cannot here enter into the various theories of 
the state. Some of them go back to ancient times. Those 


169 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES#O ER WiEAINIC LNG 


interested are referred to my Grundriss, vol. i, p. 166, where a 
short sketch of them is given. 

It is an indispensable prerequisite of any economic trading that 
communal authority should guarantee to a legal member free 
control over some amount of commodities or labour. Therefore 
economic trading always implies the existence of communal life. 
Of course, trading can extend beyond the frontiers of the com- 
munities engaging in it, and either the communities as such, or 
individual members of them, can enter into trade relations with 
each other. When this is the case we speak of foreign trade, while 
trade carried on between the legal members of one and the same 
community is called home trade. | 

Like all forms of economic intercourse, economic trade has for its 
ultimate purpose the distribution of labour and of commodities. 
Foreign economic trade is the peaceful exchange between different 
economic communities of those commodities of which either has 
an excess; home economic trade is the exchange between indi- 
vidual legal members of the same community of commodities and 
labour power. 

Just as not all acts of human intercourse are acts of economic 
intercourse, 7.é., aim at the distribution of labour and commodities, 
so rival economic trade does not cover all forms of hostile economic 
intercourse between men. ‘Thus, all the forms of contest which 
Knabenhans, in his book Der Krieg bei den Naturvélkern, enumerates 
under the name of war, in particular, the mass-duel common among 
the most primitive tribes, have in themselves apparently nothing 
to do with the violent appropriation of labour power and commo- 
dities. Seeing, however, that the loss of human life, which these 
contests involve, means also loss of labour power, contests, which are 
not in themselves economic acts, may nevertheless be economically 
very important for the community affected by them. Similarly, 
the principle of blood-vengeance, practised so extensively by native 
races, is probably in the main a reaction against the economic 
damage caused by acts of violence, its purpose being to restore the 
equipoise of labour power, which has been disturbed by the loss of life 
suffered. This also is the best explanation of the fact that the rela- 
tives of the slain man are not only allowed to take blood-vengeance, 
but are in many cases required by their own community to do so. 

In the same way, even war, as such, is not to be included among 
economic hostile acts proper, because the violent appropriation of 
170 


RELATIONS TO OTHER MEN 


labour power and commodities, although it is usually an accom- 
paniment of warlike actions among native races, is not the real 
object of war. Unfortunately, ethnologists have too often over- 
looked the fact that war as such is entirely a conception of inter- 
national law, and certain prerequisites are necessary before human 
contests can be called war. 

According to the usual view of international law, war is the self- 
defence by arms of states for the vindication of rights which 
cannot be defended by peaceful means. According to this defi- 
nition, the name war can only be given to contests which are 
carried on by a state assuch, and which—we must here supplement 
the definition—are directed against a state as such. The frequent 
vendettas or feuds between family groups among native races 
cannot therefore be called war. Again, according to the definition, 
war must be waged with the purpose of vindicating rights. This 
means that war can take place only between states between whom 
in time of peace there are legally regulated economic relations, 
because, otherwise, there would be no ‘rights’ that could be injured. 
The important task of war (and its economic significance) is to 
guarantee these laws of economic intercourse, and thus indirectly 
to confirm intercourse between states. So long as, at low levels of 
civilization, the mutual economic cohesion of separate states is not 
sufficiently strong to dispense with special means to vindicate the 
principles of international law, war has an economic justification. 
But when international intercourse has become more firmly con- 
solidated among nations at a higher level the function of war in the 
history of the world has been fulfilled. Its destructive effects so 
far outweigh its constructive results that war between such peoples 
has lost all economic justification. 

In contrast to those forms of rivalry already dealt with, there are 
others that aim at the violent acquisition of labour power and com- 
modities, and which are, therefore, properly speaking, hostile inter- 
course. A frequent form of the violent acquisition of labour power 
is the capture of women and children by a native tribe from con- 
tiguous tribes. When, with the development of economic trading, 
there also developed among native races a right of property in man 
himself, z.e., slavery, not only women and children, but also adult 
men were brought back in great numbers after such raids to be used 
as labour power. 

Where commodities are very unequally distributed between 


171 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


adjacent tribes, where, for example, on one side there is a super- 
abundance of vegetable food and on the other an excess of animal 
food, reciprocal raids are common, unless economic relations make 
peaceable exchange possible. As such acts of violence are not con- 
fined to open hostilities, but can also be carried out by stealth or 
sudden attack, the attacking side is not always necessarily the 
stronger. There are, of course, numerous cases in which robber 
bands at a low level of civilization attack communities at a higher 
level, but there are also cases in which native races are assailed by 
peoples higher in the scale. Indeed, it is between tribes of entirely 
different political power and at an entirely different stage of civi- 
lization that such reciprocal hostilities are most frequent. They 
have at all times played a regrettable part in the history of European 
civilization, but they are just as frequent in the colonial expansion 
of native races themselves. 

The differences between the rights and duties of the separate 
population-groups of one economic community are called differences 
ofrank. Contrasted with these ‘ranks,’ who have special rights and 
duties, cther members, whose economic conditions are identical with 
and whose rights and duties do not differ from those of all other 
members of the community, are best called ‘classes.’ 

In human development it is by no means always homogeneous, 
but rather heterogeneous, elements that combine to form social 
units, and therefore the economic community is ab initio composed 
of heterogeneous elements. The inequality of power, on which its 
whole organization is based is, therefore, inherent in its nature. 
Hence it is an error, in trying to explain the origin of differences 
in rank, to start from the idea that there was originally equality 
among the members of the community, and that differences of rank 
were a subsequent development. Besides, we cannot understand 
the nature of differences in rank if we look only at the privileges 
and overlook the duties by which the privileges were normally 
accompanied. Only where the fulfilment of these duties offers an 
economic equivalent to that part of the population which has 
fewer privileges, where, that is, the elevation of a given rank to 
special privileges is really in the economic interest of the rest of the 
population, can there be any economic justification for such 
privileges. Differences of rank which merely mean privileges for 
certain groups among the population are nothing but noxious 
excrescences of social evolution. 

172 


RELATIONS TO OTHER MEN 


The reason why differences of rank are rarely prominent among 
native communities is that the nature and range of the satisfaction 
of wants are for the most part equal for all. On the other hand, 
there is often considerable inequality in the distribution of the 
burden of labour. A part of the population, the governing class, 
is set free from most of the heavy bodily toil, and that toil falls 
entirely upon that section of the population that is economically, 
and often politically, dependent on the governing class. Differences 
in rank come more clearly into view when the perfecting of the 
economic principle leads to the development of private property, of 
the economic form of marriage and of slavery. To begin with, it 1s 
only a few privileged individuals who receive from the community 
the right to acquire property. And, even at earlier stages of 
civilization, it is often only a very small section of the people who 
are entitled to own land; so that we frequently find a ‘nobility’ of 
large landowners created by such privileges. Differences of rank 
become most pronounced when communal authority coexists with 
private property. This is the case among many negro communities 
in Africa. There the chief owns all the land and most of the means 
of production, and the ordinary subject stands to his chief in a 
relation of dependence that resembles slavery. 

It was only gradually, after a long development, that differences 
of calling appeared among native races. These, like differences of 
rank, arose when two or more communities, of different economic 
type, combined to form one community. When we find, for 
example, among many African tribes the smiths forming a class by 
themselves (an honoured class in some regions and a despised class 
in others) the explanation is that population-elements with special 
skill in blacksmith work have at some time attached themselves to, 
or been subjugated by, the tribes among whom they live. 

Much importance attaches also to the distinctions which are 
based on difference of sex, and of age, and to that between married 
and single persons. 

Not only among native races, dst also up into higher stages of 
civilization, there are certain differences between the rights and the 
duties of the sexes. Here the difference chiefly concerns the dis- 
tribution of labour, but in many instances that is accompanied by 
differences in dress and in eating. It is a mistake to infer from the 
existence of mother-right among native tribes that gynocracy 
prevailed, 7.e., that the women dominated the men ; but it is also 


173 


THES PRIMTTIVE RA CESSO BeaivisN ita 


a mistake to imagine that the native woman is merely a pitiable 
beast of burden on whom falls almost all field toil. We have 
already seen that it is the men, and the men alone, who bear the 
chief burden of the work of forest-clearing. Speaking generally, 
work is divided between men and women on the principle that those 
tasks which call for least physical exertion, but which last longer, 
fall to the women ; while those which demand great strength and 
resolution are done by the men. | 

Rights and duties are also affected to some extent by age. Asa 
rule, it is only after they have reached puberty—an attainment 
which is accompanied by special ceremonies and tests of endurance 
—that young people are admitted into the ranks of mature men 
and women. Certain forms of labour are also reserved for young 
unmarried men, and, to that extent, married men are a class apart. 
Among the Zulu Kafirs this distinction is carried so far that only 
unmarried men are called to serve in war. 


THE SOCIAL ECONOMIG PROCESS 


The term ‘social economy’ means all those social operations which 
are concerned in supplying mankind with the commodities necessary 
to satisfy their needs, in providing, that is, for the indirect satis- 
faction of wants. As the chief object of all economic intercourse is 
the distribution of labour and commodities, our first question in 
discussing the social economy is how labour and commodities are 
distributed within organized humanity, 7.e., within the various 
economic communities of the 1,700 million inhabitants of the world. 

Although all winning of commodities ultimately resolves itself 
into the production of them by labour, it by no means involves such 
production for all individuals and all groups. Commodities can be 
obtained from other men and other groups who own them by means 
of what is called conveyance. Therefore we must first consider the 
social observances in the productive process, then the conveyance 
of commodities, then, in the third place, we shall pass to the prin- 
ciples that regulate the distribution of labour and commodities 
within humanity. | 

The production of commodities, 7.e., their manufacture by 
labour, is only possible under certain conditions, and these conditions 
are themselves to a large extent the result of human activities. We 
have, therefore, to distinguish between productive acts proper and 


174 


RELATIONS? TOFOTHERY MEN 


those which bring about or maintain the conditions that are essential 
to production, e.g., all activities that are meant to assure the 
common weal or the provision of suitable labour. Both promote 
the indirect satisfaction of wants and are therefore labour. 

The generic name for every product of the economic process is 
commodity. The German word for commodities is Sachgititer, a 
compound word made up of Sache, a thing, and Guiter, goods. 
According to this etymology, before they can be ‘commodities,’ 
‘things ’1 must also be ‘goods’ in the economic sense, 7.e., means 
for the indirect satisfaction of wants. 

Two important questions arise here—(1) to what extent the 
ground as such is a commodity, and therefore an object of the 
economic process, and (2) how far man himself is a commodity. 
Every part of the earth’s surface, divided by natural or artificial 
boundaries from the rest of the world, is a ‘thing,’ including the 
cecumene (see p. 146), which is also a separate part of the total 
surface of the earth. But such separate parts of the earth only 
become commodities when as wholes they subserve the indirect 
satisfaction of wants, and this is just as little true of the cecumene 
as such as it is of the parts of the earth that are under the authority 
of the various communities. In order to make a clear distinction 
between those parts of the ground which cannot be considered 
commodities from those which as wholes are the object of human 
economy and which, therefore, are commodities, we shall call the 
former ‘areas’ (Gebiete) and the latter ‘domains’ (Grundstticke). 
These two terms should be strictly adhered to. 

The question as to whether man as such is a commodity has been 
answered by modern jurisprudence in the negative on the ground 
that only separate parts of irrational nature can be called ‘things.’ 
But, seeing that among many tribes man is, in fact, the object of 
legal relations and of economic process, that he is exchanged as a 
commodity and is even used as a measure of value, 7.e., as money, 
there can be no doubt from the ethnological point of view that man 
sometimes is a commodity, however repugnant the fact may be to 
our modern ethical views. 

Just as from the standpoint of the material economy the ground 
is one of the prerequisites of production, so from the standpoint of 
the social economy we must inquire how many of the ways in which 


1“ Things’ are separate parts of nature, independent entities, apart from the 
rest of the world. 
175 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


man is related to the ground can be considered prerequisites of 
production. As the productive process is possible only within a 
community that guarantees a peaceful life and is dependent on 
exploiting the ground, these two factors must be present together 
if production is to be possible. Therefore, it is only members of a 
community that can be producers, and only members of a com- 
munity that has command of a definite area, which can be the - 
peaceful theatre of production and is able to supply the producers 
with the necessary means of production. From the standpoint of 
the social economy, therefore, the economic process involves in the 
first place the presence of a definite area or areas. 

The second prerequisite of production is the necessary labour 
power. As the only labour power is that of human individuals, 
the community must contain a certain number of individuals who 
satisfy the conditions under which man can be a source of labour 
power. These conditions are: 

I. The man must be physically and mentally fit for the work in 
question; in particular, he must have reached the needful age, 
possess the needful health and strength, and further he must have 
acquired the necessary bodily and mental capacities. 

2. He must be sure of having the time and the means for the 
satisfaction of his needs. 

3. There must be the necessary powers to secure willingness to 
work. These powers are of two kinds—(a) the community may 
make it less desirable for the individual not to work than to work ; 
(b) the satisfaction of the individual’s needs within the community 
may be made conditional on his bearing his share in the work that 
has to be done. 

The third prerequisite of production is the existence of certain 
productive commodities and of a certain amount of pleasurable 
commodities to meet the needs of the producers. 

As the productive process always presupposes peaceful inter- 
course, there are only two chief forms of production, the communal 
andtheeconomic. It is communal production when the productive 
process is determined solely by the common interests of the indi- 
viduals forming the community, and is, therefore, directed solely to 
the production of the commodities required to supply their needs. 
In this case, the labour power of the individual is determined by 
the general purpose of the productive process and must be applied 
in accordance with the orders of the recognized leader of the 


176 


RELATIONS TO OTHER MEN 


community. In economic production, on the other hand, the 
productive process is based on mutual rivalry or competition, and in 
this case the individual is free, in virtue of his right guaranteed by 
law or by the community, to dispose as he likes of his own labour, 
or even, as the case may be, the labour of others. As, however, 
even among primitive races, the productive process is sometimes 
distributed among various authorities, so that certain functions, 
such as the maintenance of legal authority or the winning of certain 
raw materials, are reserved for a supreme authority, the separate 
phases of the productive process may be partly communal and 
partly economic. Thus, we frequently find several groups sepa- 
rately organized for production, such as the family, the sept, the 
house community. 

Communal production is by far the most common form of pro- 
duction among native races, and it is often continued even when 
conveyance of commodities has come to be regulated by economic 
principles. The conditions of production among the ancient 
Peruvians are specially important for the study of communal 
production, because of their pronounced communal character, 
although that people had reached a comparatively high standard of 
civilization. Peruvian conditions are frequently referred to in the 
literature of economics, especially on the Socialist side, in the dis-~ 
cussion of communal production, and much is made of the recurrent 
distribution of agricultural land. 

The important question of how economic production arose within 
communal life has been discussed in detail in my Grundriss (vol. 11, 
p. 102 ff.). Briefly, it arose in this way. Supreme communities, 
originally independent, each producing for itself in its own way in 
rivalry with the others, combined to form one supreme community 
which took over the task of regulating the peaceful development of 
competitive production. The first emergence of the individual as 
an independent producer came about in this way. The leaders of 
the separate producing communities, acting in a representative 
capacity, gradually came to be recognized as independent economic 
units, and to them, in their representative capacity, fell the control 
of their several districts, as well as of the labour power and the 
means of production. As against the corresponding leaders of 
other communities, this right of control became a civil right and 
included control of land, labour, and means of production. This 
provided them with all the three necessary prerequisites of economic 


M La, 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


production. This explains why, at first, only certain individuals 
enjoyed the privilege of economic independence within a supreme 
community. It was at first only these representative individuals 
who controlled the means of production, labour power, and a 
definite territorial district. 

By conveyance of commodities is meant that economic operation 
by which commodities pass from one owner to another. This must 
not be confused with transport of commodities, their transference 
from one place to another. 

The task of conveyance is threefold. (1) It supplements to some 
extent the productive process by providing those commodities 
which cannot be produced within a community owing to the lack 
of the prerequisites of production. (2) It supplies those concerned 
with the means of production essential for special types and forms 
of production. (3) It is a means of distributing to the consumers 
the commodities produced. 

Whereas the productive process requires the peaceful co-operation 
of a number of individuals within a community, conveyance of 
commodities extends into the spheres of other communities. It 
may follow either peaceful or hostile methods. Thus, taking into 
account external and internal conveyance, and peaceful and hostile 
conveyance, we have the following four different varteties of it: 


(1) Hostile external conveyance. 

(2) Peaceful economic external conveyance. 
(3) Peaceful communal internal conveyance. 
(4) Peaceful economic internal conveyance. 


Hostile conveyance is always external ; communal conveyance is 
always internal; economic conveyance can either be external or 
internal. 

As the name ‘conveyance of commodities’ implies, conveyance 
always concerns commodities. As ‘areas’ (Gebiete) are not com- 
modities, cessions of these do not come within the meaning of the 
term, whereas the transferences of ‘domains’ (Grundstticke) and of 
human beings to other owners are included. A special position is 
occupied by those conveyable commodities which have become 
universal media of exchange and measures of value, that is, money. 

As conveyance means the transference of commodities from one 
owner to another, the existence of commodities is an essential pre- 
requisite of it. And, again, as commodities, being means for the 


178 


RE EA TIONS .bO7 GAGE ER VEEN 


indirect satisfaction of wants, presuppose the productive process, 
this latter is also an indirect prerequisite. A third prerequisite to 
conveyance is control over the commodity on the part of the 
conveyer. Where the transference of commodities is effected by 
violence, the process is not conveyance; the new control is 
founded on violence. Where the conveyance is peaceful, the new 
owner's possession is founded on legal right. Commodities can only 
be ‘conveyed’ by a person who is legally entitled to convey them, 
either on principles of public law or of civil law. 

We have hostile conveyance of commodities in its pure form, 
when one economic community violently appropriates from other 
communities a portion of the commodities it requires. At lower 
economic stages, where as yet external economic trading does not 
relieve the situation, hostile conveyance is frequent, especially 
when non-agricultural tribes live alongside agricultural tribes, or 
when cattle-raising tribes have as neighbours tribes who rear no 
cattle. The fortification works of many agricultural tribes, like 
those of the Pueblo Indians in Arizona and New Mexico, are largely 
due to the desire to protect their property against the recurrent 
thieving raids of hostile adjacent tribes. 

Transition stages between hostile intercourse and peaceful eco- 
nomic external trade are represented in two cases, where we find, 
not actual hostile operations, but a conveyance which results from 
a temporary possession of superior power. These are the paying 
of tribute by one community to another, and the remarkable custom 
that is found among the Indians on the Upper Xingu. A guest, 
when visiting among another tribe, has to hand over to his host all 
he has with him beyond what he requires at the moment. As such 
visits are reciprocal, and the man who has lost his possessions can 
count on suitable compensation when the visit is returned, it 
amounts to little else than a brisk mutual exchange of commodities. 

We now come to economic external conveyance. Seeing that all 
economic conveyance implies the voluntary transference of com- 
modities, and seeing that a man is, for the most part, disposed to 
agree to such transference only when he sees a prospect of obtaining 
in this way something else that he desires, economic transference or 
conveyance of commodities usually takes the form of mutual agree- 
ment, 7.e., exchange of commodities. 

‘Exchange of commodities’ thus means their transference by 
mutualagreement. When the parties concerned belong to different 


179 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


communities it is essential that they should have an opportunity of 
peacefully exchanging their views at a given place and at a given 
time. When this is not possible within the territory of either party 
the practice arises of meeting for this purpose at the ‘frontier,’ 2.e., 
the neutral zone between the two adjacent territories. All the able- 
bodied men on both sides meet for the purpose of exchange, and not 
rarely the proceedings end with fighting. It is only when economic. 
external exchange, which in this form is barter, in the literal sense, 
has actually come into existence that economic relations can 
gradually be consolidated. As time goes on, it becomes safe even 
for outsiders to be present, conscious of certain rights and sure of 
inviolability for their persons and their wares. Then gradually 
the meeting-places, ‘markets,’ are no longer confined to the frontier 
neutral zones, but can be held within the territory of one of the 
parties. The markets are held on appointed days, or on the 
occasion of certain festivities, and are attended by people from 
the various communities. It becomes no longer necessary for all the 
able-bodied men to attend. A representative from one side is sent 
into the territory of the other to conduct the barter on behalf of his 
side, and the barter is sometimes carried on by such a representative 
even when peaceful relations between the communities have been 
temporarily interrupted by war. 

When once internal exchange has been developed and is thus 
accompanied by external barter, the representatives no longer 
appear merely in their representative capacity, but bring to the 
market wares of their own of which they wish to dispose ; and even 
the women find it possible to take part. As a matter of fact, 
among many races it is the women who are the chief actors in the 
business. 

It is clear that the communities concerned in these dealings must 
be nearly equal in strength ; otherwise there would be no guarantee 
that the weaker side could maintain control over their commodities. 
Barter may be urgently necessary between two parties, but if they 
are unequal in strength, a meeting even on neutral territory may be 
difficult to arrange, because the weaker side cannot feel reasonably 
secure. A method of meeting this difficulty is found in what is often 
called ‘dumb trading.’ The name is inaccurate, because it is not 
‘trade,’ but ‘barter,’ exchange of goods, and it should be called 
“dumb barter.’ In this case the exchange of goods is carried 
through without the parties meeting each other at all. It is carried 
180 


RELATIONS TO OTHER MEN 


out by the Malays and the Kuba as follows: The Malay announces 
his presence by a signal and withdraws. Then the Kuba appear, 
deposit such wares as they mean to exchange, announce by signal 
that this has been done, and withdraw. Now the Malay deposits 
beside the Kuba wares as many of his wares as he intends to offer 
for what has been deposited by the Kuba. If both sides are satis- 
fied each in turn takes away its goods. When the way has been 
prepared for relations between communities that are unequal in 
strength, peoples of higher civilization have an opportunity of under- 
taking regular barter-expeditions, and of bringing their manu- 
factured goods to the notice of neighbouring peoples who are of 
lower civilization. Expeditions of this kind on a large scale were 
equipped by the ancient Mexicans. They are also found in the 
form of armed caravans among the Hausa in Africa, and distant 
expeditions by water were carried out by the larger armed com- 
munities of Malay and Polynesia. 

Ethnologists often speak of this exchange of goods as trade, but 
it is a complete misuse of the word. In economics, trade has a 
well-established, clearly defined meaning. Exchange or purchase 
of commodities can only be called trade when the commodity 
exchanged or purchased has in its turn been acquired by way of 
exchange or purchase of commodities. External exchange of com- 
modities in this form of actual barter is found even among many 
communities where economic conditions are undeveloped. Its 
early development between different communities is, perhaps, 
chiefly due to their unwillingness to permit transit of goods through 
their territories. On the West Coast of Africa, and also in the 
South Seas, the peoples on the coast claim the monopoly of the 
exchange of goods with the traders of civilized countries who land 
there. They themselves then dispose of the goods thus received 
from the foreign traders to the peoples of the hinterland. 

From the ethnological point of view, it is only a special variety of 
economic dealing when the equivalent for goods transferred is 
demanded in the form of special commodities that serve the purpose 
of universal mediums of exchange and measures of value, 12.e., 
money. In my Grundriss I have endeavoured to explain in detail 
how money arose. I have there shown that it was due neither to 
invention nor to any psychological fact, but that it arose spontane- 
ously as economic life developed. Money only attains its full eco- 
nomic meaning when internal and external trade co-exist. Buying 

181 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


and selling are spontaneous developments of economic internal 
trading, and only appear in external trade at a later stage, when 
international civil law has reached some degree of development. 

The actual starting-point of internal conveyance of commodities 
is peaceful communal conveyance. But, in course of time, this 
latter meets with restrictions from the side of economic conveyance. 
It is essentially involved in communal conveyance of commodities 
that the act of conveyance is done independently of the will of the 
persons concerned in it. Either the authority who holds control 
by the will of the community distributes the available commodities 
directly in his own way, or they are distributed according to fixed 
rules, accepted by the whole community as the established norm, 
and recognized as ‘common law.’ 

This ‘official’ distribution of commodities plays an important part 
at early economic stages. In this way are distributed the booty of 
the chase among heads of families, ready prepared food among 
households, and even the means of production. This is still done 
even among tribes who have reached a comparatively advanced 
stage, and in the commonest form of distribution the land allot- 
ments are periodically redistributed among the households. 

For information regarding the communal rules regulating the 
distribution, we must call in the aid of ethnological jurisprudence. 
But, although much material on this subject has been collected, the 
distinction has not been kept sufficiently clear between public law 
and civillaw. In particular, possession under public law has been 
frequently confused with property held under civil law. Besides, 
in the communal distribution of commodities the person who makes 
them frequently decides their destination. The manufacture of 
tools or pleasurable goods for personal use is frequently left to the 
person who desires them. Similarly the share taken by individuals 
in the labour of the chase is sometimes allowed to weigh heavily 
when the booty is distributed. In other cases—for example, in 
tillage—the crops are distributed on entirely different lines. Among 
the Bakairi Indians the forest-clearing is done by all the men in 
the village, but the produce may go to one single family. And in 
other regions, as in ancient Peru, the actual tillage of the fields that 
have been officially allotted to the various families is either done by 
all the members of the village community or by the labours of 
persons other than the actual owners. 

Even although the economic internal conveyance of commodities 
182 


RELATIONS TO OTHER MEN 


had its origin in economic external conveyance, there is at least one 
essential difierence between the two. In the former those con- 
cerned, whether communities or individuals, are under subordina- 
tion to one common authority, with the result that their mutual 
relations are communally controlled and hostilities are excluded. 
All the special measures necessary to ensure peaceful external 
trading—the arranged meeting in a neutral zone, or the ceremonies 
attending “dumb barter’—are, of course, unnecessary in internal 
trading, because the rights of both parties are safeguarded by the 
community. Further, in internal conveyance of goods the trans- 
ference of a commodity into the absolute control of another is only 
effective when it is accompanied by the transference of the rights 
to it. There are thus two kinds of internal conveyance of com- 
modities—(1) when the commodity is transferred, but the right to 
it is reserved, 2.e., when it is only the bare possession that is trans- 
ferred, and (2) when the transference of the commodity includes the 
transference of the right to it to another person in the community. 
The most important example of the mere transference of possession 
is when a commodity is handed over to another person with per- 
mission to use it, but under an obligation to return it when the 
purpose has been served. When this is done without an equivalent 
it is called a loan. If it is done on condition that some other com- 
modity is given as an equivalent, it is what is best called temporary 
transference of possession, because the term ‘hire’ (Miete) is specially 
restricted in jurisprudence to those cases in which the equivalent 
given is money, and the term ‘rent’ (Pacht) is used for what is given 
in return for the temporary possession of crop-bearing land, and 
may sometimes be money plus some proportion of the produce of the 
land in question. Other examples of conveyance of commodities, 
where possession alone is conveyed, are found in the mortgaging of 
commodities (depositum) and the transference of a commodity into 
the possession of another person as security for the fulfilment of 
some demand. The latter case is called ‘dead pledging.’ The 
receiver of such pledge may be entitled merely to use the pledge 
should his debtor delay to pay, or to retain it outright as his own. 
There are two kinds of conveyance in which the transference 
of a commodity is conjoined with transference of full rights to it, 
and where, therefore, property actually changes hands, according as 
the transference is mutual or only on one side. To the first kind 
belong exchange and purchase of goods. The second kind includes 


183 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


making gifts or presents, which implies permanent ownership to 
the recipient, and making advances, 7.e. lending, in which the 
transference of property 1s merely temporary. 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF LABOUR AND COMMODITIES 
AMONG MANKIND 


In the foregoing we have studied the distribution of labour and 
commodities in its two aspects of production and conveyance. 
We have still to see how labour and commodities are actually 
distributed among mankind, or, in other words, what share of human 
toil and of commodities falls to individuals. The share of indi- 
viduals in the total amount of labour and commodities is deter- 
mined by two considerations—(1) the economic position occupied 
in the productive process by the supreme community to which the 
individual belongs, and (2) the social position of the individual 
within his community. 

With regard to the former, much depends on whether the amount 
of labour that falls to a community corresponds to the amount of 
commodities available or whether it is greater or less. Where 
contiguous territories are occupied by communities very unequal 
in strength and civilization, one is very likely to obtain some of its 
commodities at the expense of the other’s labour. This is what 
happens when weak tribes of low civilization are pushed by their 
stronger neighbours into districts so unfertile that they cannot 
obtain the raw materials necessary for the production of the com- 
modities they require, and are thus compelled to take these com- 
modities from their neighbours by robbery and theft—by hostile 
conveyance. ‘The Bushmen, who have been thus pushed into the 
barren wastes of South Africa, are a typical example of such peoples. 
On the other hand, stronger communities are apt to use their 
superior strength to take by force from weaker neighbours some of 
the results of their production, or to compel them to pay tribute. 
The ancient Mexicans derived a not inconsiderable part of their 
requirements from the tribute of tribes they had subjugated. Of 
course, there are communities where the amount of commodities 
available surpasses the amount of labour expended in their pro- 
duction, but there are others among whom the reverse is the case. 
Further, external economic trade sometimes introduces dispropor- 
tion in the distribution of labour and commodities, when it is carried 


184 


RELATIONS TO OTHER MEN 


on between peoples at very different levels of civilization, because 
uncivilized peoples often lack ability to estimate aright the value of 
the manufactured articles offered to them by civilized peoples. 
The most telling example of this is the destructive effect produced 
by the trade relations of European nations on the economic con- 
ditions of the natives of other continents. 

On the other hand, there are economic communities where distri- 
bution is in keeping with the labour expended. This is usually the 
case with contiguous communities, who are approximately equal in 
strength and civilization, so that the economic advantages and dis- 
advantages of external intercourse, peaceful or hostile, are from 
time to time redressed. There may bea similar ratio between work 
and supply when the territories of large empires, like those of ancient 
Peru and of China, are so vast and so varied that they cannot only 
provide their inhabitants with all they need, but are also safe from 
attack by hostile neighbours. 

But, even apart from the question as to how far the labours of an 
economic community exclusively benefit its own members, dis- 
proportionate distribution may arise, because the means of pro- 
duction necessarily vary with the situation of the territory, the 
degree of perfection in technical skill, and with the manner in which 
the productive process is socially organized. 

Seeing that the measure of labour and of commodities falling to 
the individuals of an economic community constitutes a certain 
fraction of the total available, this measure must be very greatly 
affected by any disproportion in the different communities between 
the amount of labour and the amount of commodities produced. 
Among native races there is little of the liberty to move from place 
to place that is so familiar to us. For the most part the individual 
is tied down to membership in one community, and transition to 
another is only possible under conditions outside his own control, 
such as his capture by enemies or marriage. Similarly, his social 
position in his community is determined ab initio by matters outside 
his own control, by his birth or sex, his marriage or his age; and 
this social position determines his share both of labour and of supply. 
We have already seen that the individual’s share of these is greatly 
affected by his social position and rank. And it should be added 
that distribution can be as unequal in a communal community as in 
one on an economic basis. In the ancient Inca state, which was 
pronouncedly communal in character, there was the most glaring 


185 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


contrast between the labouring class and the governing class, which, 
of course, included the numerous members of the Inca’s family. 
The greatest contrasts between the labouring, poor class and the 
governing class, who are more or less free from actual productive 
labour and superabundantly provided with commodities, are found 
just at the transition stage from communal to economic life. The 
leaders of the various communities have the opportunity of ex- 
ploiting their command over communal labour and commodities 
and using them in economic intercourse with outsiders. Thisis still 
common among negro rulers in Africa. 


THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOCIAL ECONOMY 


Economists have frequently endeavoured to distinguish stages of 
development within the human economy, but they have not yet 
reached results which correspond with the inttial stage of the social 
economy as we find it among native races. Friedrich List marked 
off the stages of the evolution according to the method of material 
production. All peoples, he says, must needs pass through these 
stages—(I) the period of hunting and fishing; (2) the period of 
cattle-breeding ; (3) the period of agriculture; (4) the period of 
agriculture conjoined with industry; (5) the period of agriculture 
conjoined with industry and commerce. This last he declares to be 
the highest stage attainable. This gradation is contradicted by 
ethnological facts: cattle-breeding by no means always precedes 
agriculture. But there is another reason why we cannot accept it : 
it is made solely from the standpoint of the material economy, and 
leaves the social economy out of account altogether. 

Hildebrand’s differentiation of the stages of the social economy 
into natural economy (economy in kind), money economy, and 
credit economy, is also ethnologically inadmissible, because it is 
made exclusively from the standpoint of economic intercourse, and 
takes no account of the communal economy which is so important 
for the initial stages. Biicher’s scheme, based on the different ways 
in which intercourse is organized, is house economy, town ecomomy, 
and national economy. Schmoller’s, based on the difference in 
political organization, is village economy, town economy, territorial 
economy, and state economy. Both of these follow too closely the 
economic conditions of European civilization to be adopted by 
ethnology. Biicher, it is true, admits that his three stages were 


186 


RELATIONS TO OTHER MEN 


preceded by the original condition, the stage when each individual 
sought and found his own supplies, but even then it is not recon- 
cilable with ethnological facts. 

Any demarcation of the stages of development which will really 
exhibit all the forms of the social economy of all peoples in their 
historical order must begin at what we have called the hologeic 
standpoint and take in the whole of mankind. It is only by doing 
so that we can obtain an accurate standard for an answer to the 
important question of whether the evolution of the human economy 
exhibits a progression or a retrogression of the social element, 
1.é.. Whether mankind originally lived in a wider or a narrower 
sociality than now. From the hologeic point of view, the extension 
of intercourse is as important as its zntension, and, in the case of 
native tribes, like the Australians, who originally lived in small 
communities that comprised only a few individuals, we cannot 
speak of an extensive social life. The members of the separate 
communities were not only restricted to a narrow sphere of inter- 
course among themselves, but had hardly any dealings with the 
outside world at all. We have already seen that man’s physical 
constitution alone makes some amount of social life necessary, and 
that wherever and whenever we find him he lives and has lived 
and moved in an economic community of some kind. In my 
Grundrtss (vol. i, p. 47) I have shown in detail that it is merely due 
to the action of the ‘economic principle,’ z.e., the principle of attain- 
ing the greatest possible economic result with the least possible 
expenditure of energy, that the socializing of life has been pushed 
beyond the amount necessary for man’s existence, because the 
specializing of work greatly diminishes the labour required to obtain 
the commodities that are necessary. Therefore, there is an inherent 
tendency in the human race toward progressive socialization of 
work. In seeking to mark off the separate economic stages, we 
are therefore merely concerned with the separate phases of this 
development of the human economy that is ever tending toward 
more and more perfect socialization. 

Seeing that man, on the one hand, in his struggle for existence is 
dependent on the support of his fellow-men, and, on the other hand, 
finds his fellow-men to be dangerous rivals in his endeavour to satisfy 
his needs, there is in the history of the social economy an inherent 
dualism ; and it is to this that, as a last resort, all the currents of 
human life are to be traced. 


187 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


According to the latest results of ethnological investigation, 
tribes actually exist without any economic intercourse. Therefore, 
we must take, as the beginning of all economic development, that 
form of economic organization in which there is nothing but hostile 
external intercourse and peaceful communal internal intercourse, 
with no opportunity for the economic intercourse that would bridge 
the gulf between the competitive and socializing tendencies. A 
suitable brief name for this initial stage is the ‘ period without 
economic intercourse.’ It is followed by the ‘period of economic 
external intercourse,’ in which peaceful economic external inter- 
course, in the form of exchange of commodities, co-exists with 
hostile external intercourse, while internal intercourse is still regu- 
lated on exclusively communal lines. The beginnings of actual 
bargaining belong to this period. 

In the third period, which may be called the “ period of economic in- 
ternal intercourse,’ economic principles invade internal intercourse, 
so that we have hostile and economic external intercourse alongside 
of communal and economic internal intercourse. In this third 
period development gradually leads to the recognition of the 
individual as a fit agent for economic life, to the rise of private 
property, the use of money, the purchase of commodities, and, 
finally, mercantile trade. 

The progressive socialization of the human economic process is 
thus an inherent tendency of human nature, which the economic 
principle steadily promotes. But the mere widening and enlarging 
of economic communities on communal lines cannot enable this 
tendency to do more than come within a distance of its goal. The 
main force that enables it to attain its goal is the efficiency of the 
economic type of life, and, from our hologeic standpoint, the pro- 
gressive perfecting of this is one of the chief evidences of progress 
in the development of the human economy. 


188 


CHAPTER IV 


VOLUNTARY HUMAN ACTIVITIES IN RELATION TO THE 
INTELLECTUAL ENVIRONMENT 


THE LIMITATIONS OF VOLUNTARY ACTIVITIES BY THE 
INTELLECTUAL ENVIRONMENT 


HILE, like allother living things, man comes into the world 

W with the ability to satisfy his needs directly from nature, 
or can acquire that ability by experience, all capacities for 
satisfying his needs indirectly, 7.e., for work, have to be learned. 
What he derives from his own experience would not qualify him to 
take his part in any economic process that had already attained 
some complexity. He finds it necessary to supplement his own 
experience from the ideas of his fellow-men; and these, in turn, 
represent the sum of their own experience plus ideas which they 
have adopted from others. The sum total of a man’s ideas, which 
constitute his qualifications for economic life—what Wundt calls 
his ‘soul’ (Seele)—is thus to a very large extent gathered from 
his intellectual environment. Just as the human being grows into 
his social position, so he grows from youth onward into a definite 
circle of psychical (seelisch) phenomena. This circle varies with his 
age and with every change in his surroundings, so that in the course 
of his life he is affected by intellectual influences from all sides. 
Even among primitive races it is the parents—and in the very 
earliest times the mothers—who exert the greatest influence on the 
mind of the individual. The ceremonial reception of the young lad 
or young girl at puberty into the ranks of adult men and women 
usually means the widening of the intellectual horizon, and this 
intellectual enlargement is repeated at each transference into a new 
age-class. Without doubt all these intellectual spheres that suc- 
cessively surround the individual in the course of his life conjointly 
affect his circle of ideas. The question—very important ethno- 
logically, although it has hitherto been neglected—arises here of 
how far these various circles through which the individual passes 
ultimately coalesce into a unity, or to what extent they successively 
displace each other, or even continue to exist side by side as two 


189 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


unrelated circles, ‘two souls in one breast,’”’ as Goethe says. That 
a human being, when he reaches manhood, or when he is admitted 
into a higher age-class, does consciously enter into a new circle of 
ideas, is clear from the fact that such change is frequently accom- 
panied by a change of name, as if to put it on record that the 
individual has thus become ‘another man.’ On the other hand, 
during my travels in Brazil [had repeated opportunities of observing 
individuals who had lived for a considerable time among Europeans 
and had become familiar with European ways of thinking. When 
they returned home and resumed their native language they reverted 
completely to their former Indian circle of ideas. With a passing 
European traveller they behaved as Brazilians, and, although they 
spoke Portuguese in their intercourse with him, their mental tone 
was purely Brazilian. In these individuals the sum total of all the 
ideas they had learned had certainly not coalesced into a unity. 
No doubt, in course of time, both circles of ideas more or less interact 
on each other. Such an individual will never be able entirely to 
put off the Indian, and yet he will doubtless carry over into his 
Indian life a great deal of European mentality that will be useful to 
him. It is, in fact, a common practice among many Indian tribes 
to send their young men for some years to a European settlement, 
with the express purpose of acquiring European knowledge and 
conveying it to their fellow-tribesmen. 


THE INTELLECTUAL CIVILIZATION OF MANKIND 


By the intellectual civilization of mankind we mean the sum total 
of all the psychical (seelisch) experiences of mankind at a given time. 
The expression is, therefore, synonymous with what—to coin an ex- 
pression on the analogy of Wundt’s word Volksseele—may be called » 
the “soul of humanity’ (Seele der Menschheit). From the ethno- 
logical standpoint, our first question is how this total content of 
soul-experiences, in all its forms, is distributed among mankind, and 
what share separate individuals have in it. The second question 
will be how and by what means this distribution is carried out, and 
how we are to conceive the manner in which the various commodi- 
ties of civilization are spread over the different parts of mankind. 
After these two questions have been discussed we shall glance 
at the course of the development of the intellectual civilization 
of mankind. 

190 


INTELLECTUAL ENVIRONMENT 


To recall the statement made in our opening sentences, the 
subject-matter of ethnology is the manzfestations of human life 
outside the civilization of Asia and Europe. In keeping with this, 
we are here concerned with the content of the psychical experiences 
of mankind only so far as these find expression, and appear in 
the external world as something perceptible by the senses. The 
perceptible means of expressing psychical operations are the same 
as those we have already studied as means of attaining mutual 
understanding, so we need not enlarge on them here. We distin- 
guished between those which appeal to the sense of hearing and 
those which appeal to the sense of sight. Of the former, speech is 
one of the most important means of expressing mental operations. 
There is, further, the production of sounds, either by the human 
voice, in song, or by special musical instruments. Among those 
means of expression that appeal to the sense of sight, we must 
again distinguish between gesture, which attains its most perfect 
artistic expression in mimic representation, and the objectifying 
of ideas by pictorial representation on some natural material. 

Among native races, even more than among others, thought- 
content as manifested in life is usually of a very complex kind. We 
must, therefore, keep in mind that the various kinds of psychical 
operations which are now to engage our attention are often inter- 
mingled and that they often coalesce. At the early stages of de- 
velopment art and religion are very closely related, so that art 
productions are often only intelligible through religion; on the 
other hand, art is frequently the principal form of expression for 
religious conceptions. Ina given case it is therefore often difficult 
to decide whether an artistic motif should be understood as the 
outcome of religious ideas. In the same way the norms of custom 
are often closely connected with religious ideas, and at certain 
stages of development this dependence is so great that almost 
all the acts of economic life are connected with ceremonial of 
some kind. 

Although native races possess an amazing knowledge of the pro- 
perties of natural materials and of natural phenomena, and to some 
extent even of the forces of nature, we can hardly say that actual 
science exists among them, because their knowledge is merely the 
result of practical experience which individuals have gathered in 
their multifarious relations with nature. At primitive economic 
stages man does not investigate or learn the properties of the things 


IgI 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


around him, or the interconnexion of nature’s forces, in order to 
arrange his life thereby. He merely learns how he must act on a 
given occasion, and thus gets to know nature’s powers from his own 
attitude toward them. Because some species of fish is not eaten, 
it is, he concludes, inedible or dangerous ; because certain measures 
of caution must be observed in dealing with the rapacious piranha 
fish, it is a dangerous animal. It is thus the norms of custom 
which dictate the manifestations of life of the individual, rather than 
free acts of will based on his own deductions. And just as primitive 
man’s knowledge of nature is not based on personal knowledge, so 
when he seeks to explain to himself the inner connexions of natural 
phenomena, or the reasons and causes of things, he does not reach 
scientific results by logical thinking; he merely attains to a belief in 
certain powers that are present in his life—that is to say, it is 
religion, inits widest sense, not science. We shall not enter farther 
here into the question as to when and where science first appears 
in the history of mankind, but we now turn to the three remaining 
aspects of mental culture, viz., custom, art, and religion. 

Under the name of custom are included all the norms recognized 
by a community as rules of conduct. As we have already pointed 
out, man does not come into the world with innate ability to pro- 
vide for the indirect satisfaction of his wants, nor can he acquire it 
from his own experience ; and yet, in contrast to the animals, he 
depends on indirect satisfaction in his struggle for existence. He is 
therefore compelled to learn from his fellow-men. In youth he 
copies the ways of those around him, or he is constrained by 
authority to obey the recognized ways of life—in other words, he 
is trained to observe the rules of custom. In this way the custom 
that prevails in any community gradually invades almost the entire 
life of each individual in it. Whether it be a question of how to 
treat his own body, a question of clothing or ornament, or of how 
he is to act in the presence of nature and her powers, or, finally, 
how he is to behave toward his fellow-men—the individual finds 
a model for all these activities in the behaviour of his fellows, 
and he only deviates from this in presence of some compelling 
reason. At the lower stages of civilization, therefore, it is only 
things that lie outside the intellectual sphere that can cause 
a deviation from the prevailing norm of life, although it is just 
such deviation that alone makes progress of human civilization 
possible. 

192 


INTELLECTUAL ENVIRONMENT 


Among primitive races the norms of life are for the most part 
also decisive for the behaviour of man toward his fellow-men. It is 
custom that mainly determines the economic intercourse of men 
with each other. We must not, however, allow ourselves to be 
misled into thinking that custom must, therefore, be considered a 
first step toward law. Most emphatically it must be said that 
custom and law are two essentially different conceptions, and no 
gradual transition from the one to the other is possible. Custom 
always means rules underlying the activities of the individual ; 
law, on the other hand, means rules that underlie peaceful economic 
intercourse. Such rules of intercourse, law, may, of course, be based 
on the fact that individuals in their peaceful intercourse all follow 
the same instructions, and rules of law may, in the actual form which 
they by and by assume, be determined by custom, but they are 
never the result of custom as such. 

By art ! in the widest sense we understand any representation of 
ideas that serves as an outlet for human emotions. Although the 
word ‘art,’ in this sense, often implies the communication of ideas 
to others, and although the productions of art are frequently meant 
for some group of hearers or spectators, this is not necessarily 
always the case, and it must not be considered essential. The best 
proof of this is found in the music which the Bushman draws out 
of his simple music-bow. Holding one end of the instrument 
between his teeth, he strikes the string with a small rod, producing 
notes that are audible to himself alone. 

Among the means used in artistic production we include all the 
means of expression by which psychical (seelisch) operations can be 
communicated to others. As we have already said, these are the 
same as the means used to secure mutual understanding. We dis- 
tinguished between those that appeal to the sense of hearing and 
those that appeal to the sense of sight, and we shall retain the 
same distinction between the two methods of producing artistic 
works. For our ethnological purpose, it is best to divide these also 
into those which are perceptible by the sense of hearing and those 
which are perceptible by the sense of sight. It should be said that 
this is not the principle of classification that is usually adopted in 
the science of art. The classification used there is into artistic 
expression of rest and of movement. The chief difference between 


1 See Ernst Grosse, Die Anfdnge dey Kunst (Leipzig, 1894), and Karl Bicher, 
Arbeit und Rhythmus (Leipzig, 1902). 
N 193 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


the two classifications is that the first includes dancing among the 
plastic arts, while the second groups dancing with music. 

According to the definition we have given, every representation 
of ideas, so far as it expresses human emotions, is art; but this must 
not be taken to mean that religious ideas necessarily underlie all the 
artistic work of native races. At the same time it must be admitted 
that among native races religious ideas very frequently find ex- 
pression in artistic form. Music and dancing may be used to 
express the primitive man’s ideas of his demons and their voices, 
just as they may be used to express any feelings roused by joyous 
or sad events. Both in plastic art and in painting the mottfs 
may be either secular or sacred, and the two may sometimes be so 
closely conjoined that in many cases no clear line of division can 
be drawn between them. The same is the case at higher stages of 
civilization. Many of the drawings on the figure vases of the ancient 
Peruvians are simple scenes of daily life—the rower on his raft of 
rushes, hunting scenes, or actual men and women, animals, fruits, 
or implements—while on other vessels, to all appearance exactly 
like those just mentioned, the drawings are decidedly mythological 
in character. In any case, even among peoples outside of Asia and 
Europe, the secular subjects of art work are just as important as 
the religious ones, and there is no reason to imagine that every 
figure drawing must have a religious significance. 

From these genuine art-expressions—that is, these genuine 
examples of emotion finding an outlet in pictorial form, we have to 
distinguish those which are found on manufactured articles, and 
which we may call artistic industrial production. It is only in 
goods for use that outward form or appearance has any importance ; 
in goods for consumption it plays practically no part at all, and so we 
find artistic industrial production only in the manufacture of goods 
for use. Whether in any given instance the result is merely due to 
the process of manufacture or whether art is involved is, of course, 
a question not to be decided merely on the ground that it is pleasing 
or displeasing to our artistic sense. An outward appearance that is 
merely due to the purpose for which the article was made can arouse 
thoughts which quicken the emotional nature of man; but where 
there was no direct intention of expressing emotion the result cannot 
be considered a work of art, whatever be the effect it produces on 
the spectator. It is easily possible, however, that, owing to this 
effect on the mind and the emotions of the spectator, such an article 


194 


PLATE 35 





BUSHMAN DRAWING 
South Africa. After Randall-Maciver, Medizval Rhodesia 














venue Menten er aa pg en OR Rene MOC NTE Le Ea | 





PENCIL DRAWING BY PARESSI INDIANS, REPRESENTING THE AUTHOR’S ARRIVAL 
ON HORSEBACK IN THE VILLAGE 194 


South America. Original in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 


. - Le ae es 


PLATE 36 


ae 


i 








PAINTING ON ANCIENT PERUVIAN TEXTILE 
Pachacamac. Original in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 








PAINTING ON ANCIENT PERUVIAN TEXTILE: FISHERMEN ON 
RusH RAFtTs 195 


Original in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 


INTELLECTUAL ENVIRONMENT 


may serve as a model for future artistic work, and this is what 
frequently happens among both native races and peoples of higher 
civilization. The geometrical patterns in some kinds of basketry— 
the ‘steps-and-stairs’ pattern, the zigzag lines, the rhomb pattern 





Fig. 8. DIAGRAM SHOWING THE POSITION OF THE DIAGONAL 
STRIPES IN THE RHOMB AND MEANDERING PATTERNS 
with the dot or small cross or diamond in the centre, and particu- 
larly the meandering pattern—which are entirely due to the method 
of manufacture, are not art work ; they are solely the result of the 
way in which the plaiting is done. But, even so, they may arouse 
artistic feelings in the mind of the person who made them or sees 
them, and thus become suggestions for artistic designs and them- 
selves be further developed and perfected. It is in this way that 
new patterns for basketry are created—by the varied combination 
of elements that are due to the method of manufacture. And then 


195 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


these new wickerwork patterns, when once they have aroused 
suggestions, come to be used as patterns for other forms of artistic 
work—in painting, branding, scratching, on the plane surfaces of 
wooden implements, fruit-cases, or earthenware vessels, or in 
weaving, embroidery, and so on. Of course, the use of these 
basketry patterns, which often appear in the ornament work of 
peoples of higher culture, may be conjoined with the representation 
of otherideas. It is this that gives rise to the various intermediate 
forms between figure representation and pure geometrical plane 
ornament. Fig. 9 (a—d) shows how the Indians on the Upper Xingu 
conjoin one and the same wickerwork pattern—in this case the 
rhomb standing on end, with the fish and the bird and the human 
figure. Among many tribes this geometrical ornamentation, which 
had its origin in basketry, has become so popular that plane 
(extended) ornament is hardly ever found. All figures which the 
artist desires to draw on the plane surface of his articles for use are, 
as it were, forced into the dominant geometrical pattern, and 
appear in an artificial, touched-up form, and, in competition with 
them, free, natural figure-drawing has no chance to develop. This 
explains the striking fact that the free, natural style of drawing 
reaches great perfection among peoples who are at the lowest stage 
of civilization, and who have been entirely unaffected by basketry 
patterns. We may mention, as examples of this, the well-known 
drawings of the Bushmen, of the Australians and the Eskimos, and 
also the free drawings from the Paleolithic Age of Europe. 

Up to comparatively recent times most ethnologists believed that 
the geometrical patterns were figure-drawings decorated and 
touched up, that the rhombs stood for fishes (mereschu fishes on the 
Upper Xingu), and that the triangles stood for pendent bats, or for 
the small triangles of bast (the so-called uluri) worn by the women 
on the Upper Xingu (Figs. 9 and 10). To support this view, series 
claiming to show the order of development were arranged, and 
further corroboration was believed to be found in the names given 
by the natives to their geometrical ornamentation. We have 
already seen that no such inferences can be drawn from series so 
arbitrarily chosen ; and the fact that the commonest forms of the 
geometrical patterns in question are found distributed over nearly 
the whole world proves that the names which the natives give to 
their ornaments have no bearing on the origin of the latter. A 
close study of South American basketry enabled me to show that 


196 


PEATE. 37 





DANCE MASKS OF TRUMAI AND MEHINAKU INDIANS 196 
Upper Xingu, Central Brazil. Originals in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 


PLATE 38 


Pp 


Vas 





eeasaias yf, 





MAORI CARVING 
197 


ght: 


Ri 


NEw, MECKLENBURG. 
ON A WOODEN Box 


7ROM 


-CARVING I 


Woop 


. 


Leta 


unst der Naturvolker 


c 


r, Die I 


From Sydow 
zeit 


und der Vor 


Zealand. 


ago and New 


Archipel 


Bismarck 





Fig.9. a-d, SKETCHES OF A BirpD, A MAN, AND FISHES DONE BY BAKAiIRI 


INDIANS; e AND f, SAND DRAWINGS BY AUETO INDIANS. UPPER 
XINGU, SOUTH AMERICA 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


some of the commonest geometrical patterns in the ‘steps-and- 
stairs’ style are wholly due to the process of manufacture, so that 
there is no longer any room for doubt that these patterns are an 
independent starting-point for further ornamentation, and that all 
intermediate types between them and figure representation are due 
to the combination of their mental effects with other ideas. 

In exactly the same way a connexion between method of manu- 
facture and art can be seen in plastic work, in utility goods like 
earthenware vessels, stools, and similar articles. It is worthy of 





Fig. 10. TRIANGLES OF BAST, WITH PAINTED PATTERNS, WORN BY 
BAKAiIRI WOMEN ON THE UPPER XINGU, SOUTH AMERICA 


notice that the manufacture of these articles can itself suggest to the 
workman ideas that cover both the purpose of the article and the 
shape which it necessarily assumes. Hence the digger-wasp (Sphex) 
on the end of the handle of the planting-stick of the Indians on the 
Upper Xingu, and their small earthenware bowls in the form of 
pumpkin-skins or like armadillos, tortoises, bats, and many other 
animals. In any case there is more than one motif in these works 
of industrial art, and one of them is always determined by the 
purpose of the article in question. 

Unfortunately, space forbids more than a brief mention of the 
various kinds of art-expression. 


(1) Those which appeal to the sense of hearing : 

(a) Those which find expression in speech, including 
mythical narrative and poetry. Among native races 
poetry is usually sung, and belongs also to the class 
next mentioned. 

(b) Those expressed by measured sounds—music. 


198 





198 


Maori CARVING 


t 


Kunst der Naturvolker und der Vorzet 


vé 


D 


dow, 


From Sy 


New Zealand. 


PLATE 40 





BRONZE CAST FROM BENIN, NIGERIA (KING AND RETINUE) 
Original in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 


INTELLECTUAL ENVIRONMENT 
(2) Those that appeal to the sense of sight : 


(a) Gesture: mimicry, usually conjoined with dance and 
song, gradually leading up to dramatic representa- 
tion. Among native races mimicry frequently takes 
the form of masked dancing. 

(6) The so-called plastic or graphic arts—in which 
emotions are objectified in some material—in actual 
plastic work, or in painting, woven patterns, or other 
form of plane (extended) representation. 


In order to be able to include in our ethnological system the 
religion of mankind outside the civilization of Asia and Europe, 
we must first group under one joint definition all the phases of 
human life that we should call religious. Of course, in so doing we 
must not take as our starting-point those specific phenomena which 
have been matured in the great systems of religion in Asia and 
Europe and look upon the others as being to some extent stages of 
religious development, if not of degeneration. Our definition ought 
to embrace all manifestations of religion, and this practical aim will 
be best secured if we take as our general definition of religion the 
belief in certain powers which to the emotional life of man are the 
causes of all existence and of all that happens in nature and in 
human life. According to this definition, religion is essentially 
different from science. The task of science is to investigate the 
inner connexions of natural phenomena and of human history by 
impartial logical method and solely on the basis of observed facts. 
So far as belief fetters men’s thoughts to certain dogmas that 
depend on the emotions, free development of science is impossible. 
If all attempts of primitive men to explain all that is and all that 
happens are based on religious dogmas, we cannot properly speak 
of them as science. We must, of course, expect to find that 
primitive man’s religious conceptions exercise a strong influence on 
his activities, but the effect of these religious influences on economic 
life among men at the very lowest stage of civilization has, in my 
opinion, been greatly exaggerated. 

For our ethnological purpose we are concerned with the religious 
conceptions of mankind only so far as they find expression in out- 
wardform, Leaving out of account the religious systems of modern 
Asia and Europe, religious conceptions are expressed (1) in cultus 
and (2) in art. 


199 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


By ‘cultus’ we mean all those acts by which men believe them- 
selves to be brought into touch with the powers that are the objects 
of their religious faith. These powers are of various kinds, and the 
cultus, so far as it is not merely a direct means for the satisfaction 
of religious wants, is performed for various ends, including some 
that are economic; cultus, therefore, may take many forms, upon 
which we cannot here enlarge. We have already seen that every 
representation of ideas that affords an outlet for human emotion is 
art; consequently all representations of religious ideas come under 
this head ; and, as cultus or worship largely involves such represen- 
tations, art occupies a large place there also. Mimicry, dancing, 
- and music play an important part in worship, and the paraphernalia 
of worship already described provide room for the display of the 
plastic arts also. 

The powers to whose mysterious working faith ascribes the out- 
ward events that affect human life, sometimes favourably and some- 
times unfavourably, are of many kinds. They include the spirits of 
the dead, and this gives rise to worship of the dead and to ancestor- 
worship—manism. A somewhat similar belief in spirits is found in 
animalism, in which such powers are ascribed to animals, who are 
considered to be equal or even superior to man. This leads to a 
universal animal-worship, or a special veneration of certain species 
of animals as guardian spirits and ancestor-animals—totemism. 
Further, various portions of inanimate nature are looked upon either 
as possessing power to affect human fate, or as being the dwelling- 
place of beings to whom such powers are ascribed. These include 
the sun, the moon, and the stars, and to them many peoples pay 
worship. This leads directly to demonism. This is a belief in 
‘spirits,’ properly so-called, and ascribes controlling power over 
events and human fate to independent beings, demons, who take 
up their abode in certain natural objects, although they are not 
necessarily confined to them. This belief is in some regions so 
widespread that almost every part of nature is conceived to be thus 
animated. This stage of religious faith, usually called animism, is 
considered by some scholars, perhaps following Tylor, to be the 
initial stage of all religion. A subspecies of demonism is fetishism, 
in which the various demons are conceived as being confined to 
certain objects, places, or figures, or even any trifling thing, such as 
a stone or piece of wood. 

Another direction of thought, often closely connected with these 
200 


INTELLECTUAL ENVIRONMENT 


religious conceptions, starts from the dynamical effects which mani- 
fest themselves in events for the weal or woe of mankind. The 
good and the evil that befall men, the success or failure of their 
efforts, are ascribed to the influence of certain invisible powers, to 
whom, in as far as the influence is conceived to be due to their own 
will, some degree of personality is attributed. The various kinds 
of activities and passivities, field toil, hunting, fishing, dancing, play, 
illness, famine, death, are. connected with definite powers of this 
kind. Between these powers, these‘ deities’ and ‘spirits’ or demons, 
already mentioned, there are, of course, various relationships. The 
deities of agriculture are believed to be closely related to the natural 
phenomena that affect agriculture—the sun and the rain—and are 
therefore conceived as sun and rain deities. To some of these out- 
standing importance is ascribed; they are made the authors of 
existence, creators, and the creation of man by such creator deities 
is a frequent subject of myth. 

Man’s behaviour must, of course, be in keeping with these con- 
ceptions regarding the nature of the invisible, controlling powers 
that influence his fate. Where spirits and demons are in question 
man is chiefly concerned with precautions against the evil influences 
of these powers ; in the case of the deities he is chiefly anxious to 
propitiate their favour and to secure their aid in the satisfaction of 
those needs that lie within the sphere of their influence. He seeks 
to keep the evil spirits at a distance, or to prevent their malign 
influence. Even among primitive peoples this task of warding 
off evil spirits by certain manipulations—acts of magic—falls to 
specially appointed persons, usually called, in ethnological literature, 
magicians or medicine-men. The attitude of the magician toward 
the spirits is variously interpreted among different peoples. Some- 
times he is credited with the power of transforming himself for a 
time into a being with supernatural power, so that spirit meets 
spirit. Thence arises the conception that he in turn can exploit 
this power for men’s undoing. Distinctions are drawn between 
good and evil magicians, and among some tribes the view prevails 
that many forms of misfortune—death, illness, drought—are due to 
the evil working of these men, who are believed either to be in 
league with evil spirits, or to be practising their malign influence 
independently. 

I cannot here enter into the various forms of cultus which are 
intended to dispose the deities in favour of men. For this purpose 

201 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


men pray, flagellate themselves, offer sacrifices, including human 
sacrifices. Even among native races special importance attaches 
to efforts to discover the will of the gods, so that men may be able to 
make their arrangements in accordance with that will. Important 
enterprises, like war, are undertaken only when favourable oracles 
or omens have given the assurance that the deities concerned look 
favourably upon them and that certain success may be expected. 
Here also the conduct of the ceremonies is in the hands of special 
persons—priests. These men are frequently associated in heredi- 
tary priesthoods, which enjoy special privileges and are usually 
closely associated with the heads or leaders of the community. In 
addition to superintending the cultus, these men are also the cus- 
todians of tribal traditions, and among primitive races they often 
exercise an important influence on intellectual civilization. 


202 


PLATE 41 


ANCIENT MEXICAN STONE-RELIEF: THE ‘ CALENDAR STONE’ 
Original in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 





PLATE 42 





ANCIENT MEXICAN STONE FIGURE: THE EARTH-GODDESS, 
CoATLICUE 203 


After Sydow, Die Kunst der Naturvolker und der V orzeit 


PAR haa 


SPECIAL OR DESCRIPTIVE ETHNO- 
LOGY (ETHNOGRAPHY) 


CHAPTERS! 
INTRODUCTORY 


CIENTIFIC men have long busied themselves with the task 

of drawing up a suitable classification of mankind into races. 

Greek and Roman thinkers and, even earlier than they, the 
ancient Egyptians assumed that their own people were the actual 
centre, and they distinguished four other main groups, according 
to the four chief points of the compass. Even Leibniz (1646-1716) 
followed this method and divided mankind into four groups, 
according to the four directions—the Laplanders in the north, 
Ethiopians in the south, Mongols in the east, and Europeans in the 
west. Another classification—into three original races—was based 
on the Biblical narrative, and found supporters, even in the nine- 
teenth century, in Cuvier and de Quatrefages, who divided mankind 
into white men, red men (including mongols), and black men. 
Shem was the ancestor of the red races, Ham of the black, and 
Japhet of the white. 

Of the numerous systems which have been drawn up from time 
to time, we shall mention only the most important, in order to show 
the very different ideas that have been the basis of classification.* 

The system of Linneus is interesting, as it shows how elementary 
was the knowledge of the human race that had been attained in 
1735, the year in which this system was drawn up. Linneus 
divides the genus homo into three chief species, as follows: 


1 See Moritz Hiérnes, Natur und Urgeschichte des Menschen (Leipzig, 1909), 
vol. i; Linnzus, Systema Nature (1735); F. Miller, Allgemeine Ethnographie 
(1879) ; T. H. Huxley, Man’s Place in Nature (London, 1863); T. H. Huxley, 
“On the Geographical Distribution of the Chief Modifications of Mankind,” in 
Journ. Ethnol. Soc. (1870); Quatrefages, Histoive générale des vaces humaines 
(Paris, 1885-89) ; Topinard, L’ Anthropologie (1876); A. H. Keane, Ethnology 
(Cambridge, 1896) ; Johannes Ranke, Der Mensch ; Cr: Stratz, Naturgeschichte 
des Menschen. 


203 


THE PREMITIVE RACES OR @NEAN KEN 


(1) Homo sapiens, the normal European, Asiatic, African, and 
American. 

(2) Homo ferus, human tribes very low in the scale, and some 
savage men who have been heard of. Homo ferus has no 
articulate language, is covered with hair, and goes on all 
fours. 

(3) Homo monstruosus, abnormal men, such as giants, dwarfs, 
macrocephalics, microcephalics, cretins, etc., who have 
been heard of from various quarters. 


Homo sapiens is then ingeniously classified into four subdivisions, 
on the basis of temperamental differences : 


(1) The American with ruddy complexion and choleric tempera- 
ment. He is obstinate, self-satisfied, a lover of liberty ; 
paints himself with an intricate maze of lines and is 
largely governed by habit. 

(2) The European, with white complexion and sanguine tempera- 
ment; he is easily moved, keen, and inventive; and loves 
close-fitting garments and government by law. 

(3) The Asiatic, with yellow complexion and melancholic tem- 
perament ; he is cruel, ostentatious, and greedy; loves to 
wear loose clothing and is governed by opinion. 

(4) The African, with black complexion and phlegmatic tem- 
perament; he iscunning, indolent, and indifferent; anoints 
himself with fat and is governed by caprice. 


Blumenbach’s classification into five races long enjoyed great 
favour: (1) Caucasians ; (2) Mongols; (3) Ethiopians ; (4) Ameri- 
cans; (5) Malays. Later a sixth was added—by Ehrenreich, 
among others—Australians. 

Other classifications were based on the shape of the cranium, the 
quality of the hair, and difference of language. These involve 
problems and questions which have till now only been studied either 
from the purely anthropological or from the linguistic point of view, 
and, as these results have not yet been sufficiently sifted from the 
ethnological side, we cannot enter upon any detailed discussion of 
them. 

The remarkable differences that are revealed by these attempts 
to classify mankind are in strong contrast to the clear principles of 
division that govern the classification of the animal and vegetable 
204. 





MASKED MEDICINE-MAN OF THE KWIKPAGMIUT (ALASKAN ESKIMO) 
Original in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 204 


PLATE 44 





Mask COSTUME OF THE KWAKIUTL, WORN BY MEMBERS OF THE 
HAMETZ SECRET SOCIETY 205 


North America. Original in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 


CEASSIETCA LION OHS MANKIND 


kingdoms. They are due to the difficulty of drawing a sharp line 
between the various human types and of recognizing intermediate 
forms when they occur. Asa matter of fact, there is an enormous 
diversity of human types, and it is subject to constant change. This 
constant change is, no doubt, largely due to frequent crossing, but 
part of the cause also lies in change of environment, of social con- 
ditions, and of mental culture. In our attempt to learn something 
of mankind in all its variety, we shall, for want of a better principle 
of classification, start from the purely geographical standpoint. We 
shall first study the inhabitants of the various continents and the 
islands that belong to them, and then try to differentiate as far as 
possible the units that are culturally connected with each other. 
We begin with the American continent, because the indigenous 
population there, owing to its situation apart from the rest of the 
world, constitutes a natural unit. 


205 


GH Aste Raa 
THE PEOPUCES9Os 20H tence 


THE PEOPLES OF AMERICA 


HEN, after the discovery of America, it was realized that © 

4 N that land was an independent continent, there was forced 

uponmen’s mindsthe great questionas tohowthe ancestors 
of its inhabitants had come thither, and how the ancient American 
civilizations were to be accounted for. The surprising fact that 
on that continent, surrounded on all sides by the sea, human beings 
similar to those in the Old World were found, had to be harmonized 
with the views that prevailed regarding the world. Under the in- 
fluence of the Biblical account of creation, it was assumed that the 
human race had had one common home, and that this was in 
the Old World. Thesole problem, therefore, was to explain how the | 
peoples in America had come from the Old World to their present 
places of abode. Founding their opinions on supposed similarities 
of physiognomy, some assumed that the Mongols, and others that 
the Caucasians were the source of the American race. Others, again, 
arguing from an alleged likeness between some American types 
and the Jews, maintained that an immigration of Phcenicians and 
Egyptians had taken place (did not Solomon send expeditions to 
Ophir ?), and still others saw in the Americans the descendants of 
the Canaanites or of the Jews whom Shalmaneser had deported. 
These fantastic attempts to account for the presence of the Ameri- 
can peoples need not detain us, but there are other views that we 
must examine more closely, because they seemed to provide ground 
for the assumption that the peoples of America came from the Old 
World. 

For example, it has been assumed that, even in ancient times, 
people in East Asia knew of the existence of the New World. The 
ancient Chinese annals mention a land, Fusang, lying far away in 
the east, and some have identified this land with ancient Mexico. 
It is clear, however, from the descriptions that are given of the pro- 
ducts and customs of Fusang that it was some country of East 
Asia, in one of the islands north of East Asia. 

206 





(OWIMNSH 


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NVMSVIV 


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dMIMY AHL AO ONIAUVO-AN 


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S¥ ALV Id 


PLATE 46 











DANCE BLANKET OF THE TLINKIT INDIANS 
North America. Original in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 








Pe I a 





Died see paar FT Reo Ca 


CHIEFTAIN FIGURES OF THE KWAKIUTL 207 
North America. Originals in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 








THE PEOPLES’ GE THE BARTH 


Again, it has been claimed that the ancient migration sagas of 
Mexico and Peru contain proofs of the foreign origin of these an- 
cient civilizations. According to the traditions of the Aztecs, their 
original home was an island in the sea, and Sahagun says that the 
Toltecs came originally over the sea and landed on the north coast 
near Panuco. The story in the Inca saga of the god Viracocha, who 
when his life on earth was done disappeared across the sea, gave rise 
to the idea that he was of foreign origin. The isolated scraps of 
information that a whole nation on rafts had come by sea to the 
coast town of Lambazeque, that a foreign race had landed on the 
coast of Ecuador, and that these new-comers had founded dynasties 
have also been adduced as evidence of immigration from oversea. 
But all these statements either are mere mythological traditions 
without any historical basis, or, at best, indicate migrations or 
movements of a purely local nature. 

Once more, it has been claimed that the numerous identities 
between the cultures of the Old and the New Worlds prove the 
existence of close relations between them. But if we are to esti- 
mate aright the connexion between the American race and the 
inhabitants of the Old World we must keep in view not only the 
identities, but also the palpable differences between the two civiliza- 
tions. In the case of the former it is difficult to say whether they 
are due to national interrelations or to independent parallel de- 
velopment, while some of the differences are of a kind that exclude 
close relations for any length of time. Asa matter of fact, there are 
two important points of decisive difference between the inhabitants 
of the Old and the New Worlds. In the first place, no affinity has 
yet been shown to exist between American languages and those of 
the Old World ; and, secondly, the cultivated plants of the American 
agricultural peoples are entirely different from those of the Old 
World. With the exception of the coco-palm, whose wide distri- 
bution is due to the power of resistance against seawater possessed 
by its fruits, the cultivated plants of America were not known in 
other parts of the world at the time when America was discovered. 
But that period of the discovery provides the best proof of the 
rapidity with which intercourse between two different civilizations 
is followed by an exchange of their cultivated plants. As far back 
as a century ago the dividing lines between the plants of the Old 
and the New Worlds had been so obliterated over the whole world 
that close and detailed scientific study was necessary in order to 

207 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


determine which species of domesticated plants were of American, 
and which were of Old World origin ;. and indeed the European 
banana spread with such rapidity in America that it has frequently 
been considered as indigenous there. 

All this makes it clear that, if we are to reach a common origin 
for the American race and the inhabitants of the Old World, we 
must go back to times far more remote than those mentioned in 
these theories. It is, of course, indisputable that there existed both 
ethnological and anthropological relations at the frontiers between 
the American continent and the adjacent countries. There is proof 
that these existed between East Asia and the north-west of 
America, and it is possible that the link of connexion was wrecked 
vessels or something of that kind. But no decisive influence on 
American civilization as a whole, nor on the economic conditions of 
its peoples, can be attributed either to such frontier relations, or 
to such chance happenings as those suggested. 

It has been proved that, even in recent geological periods, there 
was a connexion between the mainland of America and Asia and 
Europe, and there is no reason why we should not assume the ex- 
istence at that time of a more or less homogeneous population in 
this continuous land-mass. The discoveries of antiquities in America 
do not at all exclude such a remote origin of the American race, 
although the inferences which have been drawn from these 
antiquities are still so disputable that no positive assertions about 
the age of man in America can be founded on them. Fantastic 
theories, like those of Ameghino and Hauthal, regarding the 
original home of Tertiary man in the pampas, and his life with 
the armadillo (then already long extinct !) and the megatherium | 
(Hauthal even declares that Tertiary man kept a fossil species, 
the grypotherium, as a domesticated animal) are of course to be 
at once rejected. We are taken back into far remote times by 
the discoveries made in the numerous, artificially constructed shell- 
heaps—the sambakis—corresponding to our ‘kitchen-middens,’ 
which are found up and down the coasts of North and South 
America. 

In seeking for points of connexion between the inhabitants of 
the Old and the New Worlds, we have thus every reason for 
going back to very remote times. The gradual’separation of the 
American race, aS an independent unit, from the rest of mankind 
is to be explained by morphological and climatic changes of the 
208 


Bele PE ORTH s7.@ Heer oak TE 


earth’s surface, brought about by great ruptures of the land and 
by the Ice Age. 

Apart from the Eskimos, who are Mongoloids and occupy a 
position by themselves, somatically and culturally, all differences 
in the population of America at the time of the discovery are 
to be considered as merely varieties of one and the same 
basal type, marked by numerous features common to the majority 
of the tribes. 

The impression which the external appearance of the Indian 
makes on a European is on the whole far from a disagreeable one, 
although the facial features of the South Americans are often dis- 
figured by extremely large ‘ornaments’ in ears, lips, ornose. Among 
South Americans the Patagonians are outstandingly tall—many of 
them are 6 ft. 3-4 in. in height, while other tribes, like the Fue- 
gians, Botocudos, and Trumai, are distinctly short in stature. The 
complexion of the Americans is most correctly described as various 
shades of brown, mostly lighter shades. In the south and south- 
east of North America, evidently owing to the influence of the 
strong sunshine, very dark types are found, but the complexion of 
the South Americans is, on the whole, fairer, especially among the 
tribes that live chiefly in the shades of the primeval forests. The 
name ‘Redskin’ is based on an erroneous conception, and is due to 
the common practice of smearing the body with red dye. Straight 
hair is common in South America, but more frequently than in 
North America—one finds there fine, wavy hair, and, very often, 
frizzy and curly hair, as among the Bakairi and Tukano tribes. 
The beard is in most cases entirely removed by being plucked out, 
and seems scantier than it really is. Bearded Indians are found 
mostly in the north-west and west of North America, and among 
a very few tribes of South America, e.g., the Guato. 


THE TRIBES OF NORTH AMERICA 


How erroneous it is, ethnographically, to base the classification 
of peoples merely on the fact that they belong to different linguistic 
stocks is specially apparent in connexion with the tribes of North 
America. Tribes which belong to one and the same linguistic family 
are found here at quite a different level of civilization, and, of course, 
for our ethnographical purpose, it is only the cultural identities that 
count. Nevertheless, we give here a brief conspectus of the chief 

O 209 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


linguistic stocks and their distribution, before turning to the eight 
separate provinces of civilization. 


(1) The Eskimoan, linguistically a very uniform group, scattered 
along the shores of the Arctic Ocean as far as the east coast 
of Greenland. 

(2) The Athapascan or Tinneh, adjoining the above on the south- 
west, interspersed along the west coast among other lin- 
guistic stocks and extending, with the Navahos and the 
Apaches, as far as Arizona and North Mexico. 

(3) The Algonquian stocks, adjoining the Eskimo on the east, 
and extending well down the east coast. 

(4) The Iroquoian-Huron group, in the valley of the River St. Law- 
rence and inthe territory round Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. 

(5) The Siouan or Dakotan group, adjoining (3) on the south- 
west. 

(6) The Muskhogean group, adjoining the Iroquioan on the south- 
west and extending to the Gulf of Mexico (Creek and others). 

(7 and 8) The Kaioweh and Caddoan (Pawnee and others) ; 
aborigines of the Grass steppes, adjoining the Siouan group 
on the south-west. 

(9) The Shoshonean stocks (Comanche and Hopi in Arizona and 
others). from the Great Basin southward. To these belong 
also the Sonorish peoples, including the Aztecs. 


Besides these larger linguistic stocks there are numerous smaller 
ones, of which no fewer than twenty-one are to be found in Cali- 
fornia and Oregon alone. Also, on the steep north-west coast and 
on the dry plateaux of Arizona and New Mexico there is great 
linguistic divergence. 

We now turn to the separate provinces of civilization, and here 
we have eight different racial groups : 

I. The Arctic Region. This coincides for the most part with the 
first linguistic group, that of the Eskimo, but some Athapascan 
tribes have adopted the Eskimo civilization. 

Being the inhabitants of the Farthest North—the Smith Sound 
Eskimos have penetrated up to 82° north latitude—the Eskimos 
live mainly on animal food. Some amount of vegetable food is, © 
however, necessary, and this they find in the form of various grasses 
and seaweeds, and in the contents of the stomach and intestines 
of the reindeer. Their only forms of production are fishing and 
210 


rtd EO PISA} Hata Eby A R&T TH 


hunting. Their apparatus for these purposes is far from primitive 
—several kinds of harpoons and spears, bows and arrows, and the 
“spear-thrower,’ with which they hurl the harpoon projectiles. 
They use various kinds of snares. The reindeer, which the Eskimo 
—unlike the North Asiatic—has never domesticated, is caught in 
nets, nooses, and pits. For hunting water-animals the Eskimo uses 
the kayak, which is roofed in, while the larger umiak, used by the 
women and for transport purposes, is uncovered. The dog is 
domesticated and is used mainly to drag the sledge, but it is also of 
assistance in hunting the musk-ox, the bear, etc. | 

In summer the Eskimo lives the hunter’s roving life, living in 
tents of skin, but in winter he betakes himself to a solid dwelling, 
built either of wood, partly sunk in the ground and covered with 
earth, or of stone, with a roof of whalebone, or of snow, dome- 
shaped, Light and heat are both provided by lamps, carved out of 
soapstone (steatite) and fed with blubber oil. 

In keeping with their climate, the Eskimos are among the most 
completely dressed primitive races. The manufacture of hides is 
the main type of transformation of commodities practised among 
them. When indoors the Eskimo prefers to go about naked. 

2. Canadian Collectors and Hunters. To this group belong the 
more northerly Athapascans, like the well-known Chippewayan, 
Dog-rib, and Beaver Indians, as well as a portion of the Algonquins. 

The outstanding characteristic of the Indians of this group is that 
they have no agriculture and depend on what vegetable food they 
can gather, together with hunting and fishing. They live a roving 
life, with little civilization. They live mainly in conical or dome- 
shaped tents, made of poles covered with hides. 

Their clothing is of leather—hose and shoes (moccasins) forming 
one garment. They move about in canoes of bark, or with the 
Canadian sledge or toboggan, a board curved well upward in front. 
In winter they go on snow-shoes. 

3. The Atlantic Region. Of the former Indian inhabitants of 
the great region between the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, the great 
lakes, and the Mississippi there now remain a few remnants, living 
in separate ‘reservations.’ When, in 1682, the powerful Algonquian 
tribe Delaware ceded to William Penn by treaty what is now 
Pennsylvania, these Indians lost the whole coast region and found 
themselves obliged gradually to give way westward before the 
whites. In 1811 their last attempt to resist the steady advance of 

PAV KG 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


the Europeans was crushed in the decisive battle of Tippecanoe, 
and the remainder of the Algonquian tribes were gradually pushed 
back across the Mississippi. Similarly, the Cherokees, farther south, 
were driven out of their well-filled territory as a result of the dis- 
covery of gold in the southern Alleghenies. In spite of vigorous 
resistance, the Indians in the Gulf States also were practically 
cleared out before the middle of last century. Among the heroic 
fights waged by these Indians before they succumbed in defence of 
their liberty, that of the Seminole under. their great chief Osceola 
in the years 1835-42 is the most famous. 

An important part in the history of the settlement of North 
America was also played by the well-known Iroquoian league, 
which, according to the saga, was founded in 1570 by Hiawatha 
and included the five tribes, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, Cayuga, 
and Seneca, and later the Tuscarora. Their-warlike efficiency made 
the Indians of this league a terror to all their neighbours, especially 
as they had at an early stage learned to shoot with muskets. Their 
chief foes were their own kin, the Huron, and against them they 
waged a cruel war of extermination that lasted more than a hundred 
years. They were also a constant danger to the French settlers, 
whose bitter enemies they had always been. Their cruel war 
customs, their scalping and torturing of prisoners, are well known. 

In contrast to the two preceding groups of Indians, these Atlantic 
tribes were more or less settled, and agriculture formed an impor- 
tant part of their economic life. They raised beans, sunflowers, and 
maize, and, in the south, sweet potatoes. In many districts their 
tillage took the form of forest-clearing, but, judging from the 
numerous earth mounds which still exist in the Ohio valley and 
in the Gulf States, ‘mound-culture’ must also have played an im- 
portant part. Along with the crops thus raised, wild rice (Zizania 
aquatica), which grew abundantly in the marshy lake districts, was 
an important source of vegetable food. Great quantities of the 
seeds of this plant were gathered in a special way that has already 
been described (see p. 107). 

The buffalo, stag, and elk were diligently hunted in the winter 
months, and the southern waters, which abounded in fish, were 
exploited in many ways. Inthe north the boat of bark, and in the 
south the ‘dug-out’ (monoxyle) were used. 

In keeping with the more settled life of these Indians, their 
house-construction was comparatively solid. Among the Algonquins 
212 


PEOPLES OF NORTH AMERICA 


---Boundary line between the groups 

Distrib on of dfebtiine efbes” 
The names ‘erlined denote the 
linguistic groups 


$00 71000 1608 
Lnglish Miles 


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‘Muskhogean 
Seminole 
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212 





Pe OPE SiO ba rhe AR CEL 


of the north coast, the house, the “wigwam,’ was a dome- 
shaped tent made of poles bent to meet at the top and covered 
with bark. In other parts of the north the house was quadri- 
lateral, and its most developed form was the large ‘long houses’ of 
the Iroquois and the Huron. The houses in the south were 
different. The villages were often laid out in entrenched form, 
surrounded by a defensive palisade, especially among the tribes 
just mentioned. In the marshy, flooded districts on the coast of 
the Gulf of Mexico the houses, especially the chiefs’ dwellings and 
the houses of assembly, were usually built on a terraced under- 
structure of earth, and many of the artificial hillocks found scattered 
all over these districts owe their origin to this practice. In other 
cases, however, these hills or mounds certainly served defensive 
purposes. 

The clothing of the northern tribes was of leather, that of the 
southern tribes was of woven materials. A characteristic article of 
clothing was the ‘leggings,’ moccasins ; many of their garments 
were embroidered with pearls of shell, ‘wampum,’ which were also 
used as money. 

With regard to transformation of material, or manufacture, 
among these tribes, it should be emphasized that, in addition to 
stone implements, they also possessed implements of copper. They 
did not understand the process of getting this metal out of the ore, 
but merely cold-hammered the raw copper they found. 

Morgan’s researches led to a close study of the social conditions 
of the Atlantic tribes, and a clearly marked social organization is 
proved to have existed on a totemistic basis. The so-called mother- 
right was the only valid authority. A brisk trade between these 
tribes and outside communities must have existed, because in the 
mounds have been discovered articles of copper and obsidian, the 
material of which must have been brought into these districts from 
a great distance. We have already mentioned the use of wampum, 
shell pearls, as money. 

Pictorial writing had been brought to a comparatively high 
degree of development, especially among the Algonquian Delawares 
and Chippeways. ‘The figures were scratched on smooth pieces of 
bark. By this means the Delawares have left behind them re- 
cords of their whole tribal tradition. The Cherokee Sequoya tribe 
actually invented, with some European aid, a system of syllabic 
writing. 

213 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES ORGNUAN ENG 


Among these tribes religious conceptions had also attained some 
development. Belief in the souls of the departed was widespread 
among them, and this gave great significance to feasts for the dead. 
Among the Huron the dead were temporarily laid to rest on a frame- 
work of stakes, and finally buried in one common grave on the 
occasion of a great death-festival, held once every eight or ten 
years. Natural phenomena were believed to possess souls. The 
Iroquois and the Huron believed in a kind of magical power that 
lived in nature. The Iroquois called it Orenda, the Algonquins 
called it Manitu. There were special celebrations at harvest-time 
and in spring, and the conduct of these ceremonies was undertaken 
by a special priesthood. 

4. The Prairie Tribes. These include the tribes living between 
the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, as far north as the 
Canadian forest region. They belong to different linguistic stocks, 
and include all the tribes in the Siouan linguistic group—Assiniboin, 
Dakota, Winnebago, Crow, Mandan, Omaha, and others. Several 
Algonquian tribes have also adopted prairie life—the Blackfeet, 
Cheyenne, Shoshone, Kaioweh, and Caddo. 

There are two features that are important for the economic life 
of this group—the great part played by buffalo-hunting, and the 
fact that most of them have taken to the use of the horse, and have 
become typical horsemen. This explains their roving manner 
of life. The usual dwelling was an easily portable, conical tent of 
leather (‘teepee’), both for summer and winter. The transport of 
the tents was carried out with the aid of dogs, and, later, of horses. 
The tent-poles were attached to a belt passing over the animal’s 
back, so that one end of the poles trailed on the ground. The poles 
were held together by cross sticks, and thus became an apparatus 
for the transport of children and baggage. In winter the chief 
form of vehicle was the toboggan drawn by dogs. Snow-shoes were 
universally used, especially for hunting in winter. Boats, in the 
proper sense of the word, these prairie tribes did not possess. They 
crossed streams and lakes in circular ‘pontoons,’ made of buffalo- 
hide stretched over a flexible frame. Of course, this roving, hunting 
life was increasingly affected by the tillage that continued to 
spread westwards, and, in course of time, the dwelling became more 
substantial, and was built of earth or turf. 

Their hunting weapons were bows and arrows, but the use of the 
flint-lock continued to spread. The original weapon of war was 
214 





HERALDIC Posts OF THE HAIDA INDIANS 214 
North America. From Sydow, Die Kunst der Naturvolker und der Vorzeit 


uljiog ‘umoasnyy Teorsojouuy | ul[log ‘winosnyy [eorsojouyy a 
oy} ut ydeisojoyd ve WOT ‘*eOLIeuly Y}10 ay} ur ydersojoyd e WoL, ‘eoLioUTy YION 


cic NVIGNJ XQOIS NVWOM NVIGN] OHVdvVuy 











gv ALV Id 


Toh PEOPLES OF THE EARTH 


the battle-hammer or club, an oval stone hammer with a sharp 
edge—the tomahawk. The defensive weapon was the round shield. 

Leather and its manufacture filled a large place in their economic 
life. Tents, clothing, and utensils and receptacles of all kinds were 
allofleather. Moccasins, leggings, and a sleeved doublet of leather 
were their chief articles of dress. Over these was worn a large 
cloak of buffalo-hide, on the inside of which the exploits of the 
wearer were recorded in pictorial writing. For ornament they 
wore feathers, bird-bones, bear-claws, and embroideries done with 
dyed bristles of the porcupine. 

Characteristic also was the tobacco-pipe with its T-shaped head 
made of red soapstone. 

Men’s leagues and clubs were numerous and filled an important 
place in their social life. These leagues were based on age, and 
each had its own badges and dances. 

Among the festivals was one held in honour of the sun, when they 
danced round a sacred pole. Many of the dances involved cruel 
torture for the dancers. The worst forms of torture were practised 
by the Mandan tribe at the festivals at which youths were received 
into the ranks of mature men. The dead were laid to rest on 
platforms or on the branches of tall trees. 

5. The North-west Americans. This is another extensive 
group of Indian tribes, marked off from their neighbours by pecu- 
liar forms of civilization. Their territory is the indented north- 
west coast of North America with its numerous islands. These 
tribes, too, belong to a number of different linguistic families. In 
the north are the Tlinkit; in the Queen Charlotte Islands the 
Haida; farther south, the Wakashan tribes, including the Nutka 
and the Kwakiutl at Vancouver, and finally the Salish tribes, 
including the Bellacoola Indians or the Bilchala. 

These Indians have risen to a fairly high level of civilization. It 
is remarkable, however, that they are ignorant of tillage, and fishing 
is their chief source of food. They are typical fishing peoples. In 
summer the salmon ascending the rivers are hunted with spears and 
snared with all sorts of traps and bag-shaped hand-nets; the cat- 
sharks and seals and other sea mammals are killed with harpoons ; 
fish of all kinds, including cod and halibut, are fished up from the 
sea-bottom with fishing tackle that is sometimes of enormous size. 
Dried salmon and fish-oil form the staple winterfood. For vegetable 
food they depend entirely on what the women are able to gather, 


ate 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


In summer they spend most of their time in fishing expeditions. 
They use splendidly made ‘dug-outs’ (monoxyles), constructed from 
the stem of the red cedar-tree. In winter they live in large houses 
made of planks. These extend in long rows along the coast, and 
are organized into village communities. 

Their clothing consists of furs and capes plaited from the bast of 
the cedar-tree. They also use beautifully patterned blankets made 
from the hair of mountain goats and dogs. Gradually, however, 
these are being displaced by blankets of European manufacture. 

Their workmanship is fairly well developed in several directions. 
These Indians, especially the Haida, excel all other North American 
Indians in woodcarving. Their boats, their house-gables, and the 
large posts adorned with heraldic figures, all display a highly 
developed artistic sense. Both stone and copper are used for 
implements and tools, and copper daggers were among their 
weapons. Many of the tribes, especially the Chilcat, were famous 
for their textile manufactures. 

There are many features of interest in the social life of these tribes. 
In the south the commonest form of organization is the village 
community on a territorial basis. Among the more northerly 
tribes the population is divided into clans, based on blood-relation- 
ship and totemism. In the winter months, however, these normal 
forms of organization are completely suspended, and their place is 
taken by a system of grouping into secret leagues and alliances. 

There was also a strictly observed distinction between the various 
classes. Nobility, commoners, and slaves were sharply distin- 
guished. Nobility and chieftainship were on a purely plutocratic 
basis. Great distinction was attached to the ability to provide 
festive entertainment, ‘potlatch,’ and to display lavish hospitality 
at these celebrations. 

Trade, especially maritime trade, was well developed. The 
chief measures of value, or media of exchange, were dancing robes, 
blankets, and large ornamented copper slabs. 

The tribes of the North-west were fond of fighting, and their 
armour was of a serviceable kind. They used long lances, and 
large swordlike clubs of stone and bone. Some tribes, like the 
Tlinkit and Haida, had good defensive armour in the form of leather 
capes, coats of mail made of wooden slats fastened together, and 
wooden helmets. 

The religious festivities were closely associated with totemism and 
216 


Pott PROP ROPOe Tih abA REE 


the system of secret leagues. These celebrations were accompanied 
by masked dancing, the masks being cleverly carved and lavishly 
painted. 

6. The Tribes of Oregon and California. As already mentioned, 
these comprise a number of distinct tribes, the best known being 
the Klamath, the Pomo, the Maidu, and the Wintun. There are 
also isolated Athapascan tribes, like the Hupa, and, in the south, 
some Shoshone tribes. In spite of these linguistic differences, the 
civilization of these tribes is fairly uniform, except that in the 
north and among the extremely clever seafaring inhabitants of the 
Santa Barbara Islands there is distinct evidence of the influence of 
the North-west tribes. 

On the whole, the civilization is low. The simple gathering of 
vegetable food is practically the only activity on that side of their 
economic life. There is no tillage of any kind, and very little 
hunting and fishing. Their chief food is the wild acorn. It is 
pounded to flour and then roasted on hot stones in pits, or is put 
into watertight wicker-baskets and boiled. The water is boiled by 
having hot stones put into it. 

The houses are mostly circular. North of San Francisco they 
are built over a depression in the ground. The clothing is mainly 
of hides and leather. The women wear a fringed apron, and over 
that a skirt of stag-leather fastened round the loins: the men wear 
an apron of stag-leather, leggings, and moccasins. 

Basketry is highly developed. The baskets of these Indians, 
with their large range of patterns, and with dainty coloured feathers 
- worked into them (among the Pomo), are one of the most remarkable 
products of civilization. Obsidian is found in this region, and is 
worked into knife-blades, arrow-points, and other articles. 

Simple rafts made of bundles of rushes are used, even on the sea. 
The Klamath use marsh-shoes, hoops filled in with a network of 
straps, which prevent the wearer from sinking into the marshy 
eround. Among the Hupa, Pomo, and other tribes the men meet in 
roofed pits. As in California, however, these same places are also 
used for sudorific purposes. 

7. The Tribes of the Pueblo Region. Owing to the special 
manner in which the agricultural Indians of the plateaux of New 
Mexico, Arizona, Southern Utah, and Colorado construct their 
villages or, as they call them, pueblos, this whole region has come to 
be called by that name. In this district there are two entirely 

217 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


different strata of population—the settled Indians, whose peculiar 
style of village-construction has given the whole district its name, 
and a number of nomadic tribes, who have no tillage, and who live, 
or at least used to live, at bitter enmity with the former. The most 
important of these latter are the Shoshone tribe, the Yute, the 
Athapascan tribes of Apaches, who forced their way in from the 
north, and the Navaho, who have latterly settled down to the 
peaceful, pastoral life of shepherds. 

The descendants of the ancient Pueblo Indians belong to different 
linguistic stocks. They are the Shoshone tribe of Hopi, the Zuni, 
the Keres, and the Tano. They still retain many of their original 
characteristic features, although many have disappeared owing to 
missionary influence and other causes. But we are fortunately 
able to supplement our knowledge of the ancient inhabitants of 
these districts from the ruined sites which still survive, and from 
the remains of ancient civilization which have been discovered 
there. 

Tillage is the very centre of the economic life of the Pueblo 
Indians. In contrast to the form of it pursued by the Indians of 
the Atlantic region, the tillage of the Pueblos is that which is best 
called terrace-cultivation. Its most important feature is artificial 
irrigation, and there can still be seen the ancient canals, dams, and 
reservoirs which point to a former more intensive cultivation and 
a much better utilization of the scanty water-supply on that high 
and dry plateau. The principal crop was maize, but they also grew 
melons, pumpkins, beans, and cotton. In view of the small part 
played by stock-farming all over America, it is worthy of notice 
that these Pueblos bred turkeys. 

Closely connected with their agricultural activities is the peculiar 
style of pueblo-building. Most striking are the ‘cliff-dwellings’ 
constructed by the earlier inhabitants of these districts. They are 
spacious, complicated stone structures, built in the cliffs and fissures 
of the steep sides of the cafion of the mesa, and are often accessible 
only by extremely difficult footpaths which lead up to them from 
the bottom of the cafion. The construction of the other houses 
also was intended to provide the best possible protection against 
sudden attacks from raiding nomadic tribes. The large village 
dwellings of the Pueblos were, and are, first and foremost fortresses, 
meant to defend the inhabitants and their crops against their 
enemies. Throughout the whole district, the style of construction 
218 


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TEMPLE-PYRAMID OF CHICHEN-ITZA 
Central America. From a photograph in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 





TEMPLE RUINS OF UXMAL 219 


Central America. From Sydow, Die Kunst der Naturvolker 
und der V orzeit 


Mbt PO PLES Ome hh E AR EH 


hardly ever varies, whether the houses are in the valley or on the 
tops of the numerous mesas that rise up on the plateau. The 
whole structure is composed of separate quadrangular apartments, 
like cells, built of stone slabs or air-dried bricks, in such a way that 
the single-apartment dwellings of the separate families are ranged 
in terraced fashion one above another. The roof is flat, made of 
beams, spars, branches, and earth, and provided with chimneys 
and gutters of clay. In order to make approach more difficult, the 
lower cells have no doors or windows in the sides, but can only 
be reached by means of ladders and trap-doors in the roof. In 
addition to these defensive village dwellings, there were also simple 
family dwellings scattered about on the plantation grounds. 

Hunting is carried on with bows and arrows, and rabbits are 
killed by means of a sort of boomerang. 

Clothing is comparatively good. At festivities the men still wear 
the ancient loin-cloth of white cotton embroidered with coloured 
braid, and the women wear a dark-blue coat that leaves the left 
shoulder bare and is fastened round the body with an embroidered 
sash. The women also wear a cape, leather puttees, and moccasins. 

Manufacture (transformation of material) was on a fairly high 
level, although axes, hammers, and similar tools were chiefly of 
stone. Ceramic work is still well developed among them, Various 
kinds of wickerwork were made, the best articles being bowls of 
basketwork, showing numerous beautiful patterns. Even in ancient 
times weaving was also carried on. 

Social conditions are somewhat complicated, because the terri- 
torial and the blood-tie principles of organization are intermingled. 
The most important economic unit is the village community. This 
has a purely territorial basis, and is quite independent of any of the 
other tribal consociations that are based on blood-kinship. As a 
result, in a village community members of several kinship con- 
sociations live together, and, vice versa, the members of one and the 
same kinship consociation are sometimes distributed throughout 
various villages. These kinship consociations are of a narrower 
and a wider type, the former is a kind of brotherhood, the latter a 
kind of clan. For example, at the present day the Hopi are divided 
into sixty clans based on totemism. The totems are animals, 
plants, natural phenomena like the sun or the lightning, and 
ordinary articles of use, like bows or pipes. The clans are sub- 
divided into twelve ‘fratries,’ or brotherhoods, each of which has its 

219 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


own forms of worship and its own sagas of origin and migration. 
They seem to be actually separate ethnic units. Clans, like the 
Antelope and the Snake clans of the Hopi, often have their own 
religious societies, but at the present day the large religious 
societies are composed of men of the same age and contain members 
from all the clans. 

Besides all these, and independent of the clan organization, 
there are also leagues of men’s societies. As among the Indians of 
the north-west coast, these leagues play a special part in connexion 
with the mask dances, the ‘katshina’ dances of the Hopi. Before 
being received into these societies, the youths have to undergo 
ceremonies of initiation ; znter alia, these include their being soundly 
whipped by the masked dancers. 

The religious conceptions of the Pueblos are as complicated as 
their social organization, and seem to be a mixture of the most 
heterogeneous elements. Owing to the dryness of the region, the 
dangers threatening the crops make the withholding of the needful 
rain the chief anxiety of these Indians, and so rain-magic plays a 
special part in their worship. Smoke from the sacred tobacco-pipes 
symbolizes the rain-clouds ; their bodies are painted with symbols 
of lightning and rain; by means of special instruments—a sort of 
stretching shears and a ‘bull-roarer,’ or whirring stick—thunder and 
lightning areimitated. The serpent, as the symbol of the lightning, 
is prominent in these functions, and phallic dances, imitating the 
act of fecundation, are performed in order to ensure the success of 
the crops. 

Certain divinities, among them a supreme god of heaven, a sun- 
god and his wife, the earth-goddess, a god of the rain, and a god of 
maize, dominate the cultus of these Indians, and are represented at 
the masked dancings. Some of their religious ceremonies are held 
in special subterranean places which are only accessible through a 
hatchway in the roof. These places are called ‘kivas,’ and contain 
an altar, which usually consists of a painted back wall and a sand- 
picture made up of various kinds of sand. It occupies the space in 
front of the altar. 7 

8. The South-west Tribes. This group comprises a number of 
culturally homogeneous tribes, having as neighbours on the north- 
west the Californian tribes, on the north-east the Pueblos, and the 
ancient Mexican civilization on the south. The tribes in this ex- 
tremely hot and dry region belong mainly to two linguistic stocks. 
220 


ioertee PORE ES {Oe EEE DAK Et 


In the north, and spread over the Californian peninsula, are the 
Yuma tribes—Yuma, Mohave, Maricopa, and others ; in the south 
a number of Sonoran tribes—Pima, Tarahumara, Cora, Huichol, and 
others. There is also a small tribe, living in the island of Tiburon 
and the adjacent mainland, the Seri, occupying a position apart. 
Their civilization is low ; their vegetable food is simply what they 
can gather. Culturally they are thus more akin to the Californian 
tribes. 

The Indians of this district exhibit a mixture of the cultures of 
the three regions that meet here. The primitive gathering economy 
of the Californian tribes and the terrace-culture of the Pueblos are 
both used to provide vegetable food. The so-called mescal, ob- 
tained from the pulpy juice of certain agaves, and the same crops 
as are raised by the Pueblos, provide important foods. A species of 
cactus, too, the peyote, is gathered in large quantities by various 
tribes, who prepare from it an intoxicating liquor used at the cele- 
brations. The north tribes, like their Californian neighbours, use 
the rush-raft. The houses are also of a kind that recalls those used 
in California—e.g., the beehive-shaped straw huts, with the lower 
walls of stone, in which the Pima live during the rainy season ; 
but in the very same districts are found the remains of houses 
exactly like those that the Pueblos still build ; and the Tarahumara 
still live in cave and cliff-dwellings like the ancient Pueblos. Like 
their neighbours on the north-west and north-east, these tribes are 
clever at basketry. | 

In their intellectual development and religious customs there 
is clear evidence of Mexican influence. Among the Cora and the 
Huichol, as inancient Mexico, the fire-god isthe centre of the worship. 
Here, too, are the ancient earth-goddess, the sun-god, and others. 
Worship is conducted in special temples, which, like the houses, are 
circular, with walls of stone and earth and a roof of straw. 


THE TRIBES OF CENTRAL AMERICA 


With regard to the distribution of the tribes, Central America 
may be divided into three great regions—the Northern, under the 
influence of the civilization of ancient Mexico; the Central, under 
the influence of Maya culture; and the Southern, containing a 
number of civilized and uncivilized tribes, who, both in language 
and in culture, are nearer to the tribes of South America. 

221 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


I. The Civilization of Ancient Mexico. This collective name in- 
cludes all the tribes that adjoin the south-west tribes of North 
America on the south, occupy the southern region of the present 
state of Mexico, and extend into the region of Maya civilization, 
and through Guatemala as far as Nicaragua. Like the Pacific 
Coast areas of North America, this whole region is divided into a 
large number of tribal groups which have little linguistic connexion 
with each other. 

The most important group is that of the Nahua peoples, to which 
the Aztecs, the inhabitants of the ancient capital city, Tenochtit- 
lan—Mexico—belonged. Tlaxcala and Cholula were other centres 
of their civilization in the eastern territories. Apart from the points 
of contact between these Nahua tongues and the Sonoran linguistic 
group, the migration sagas of the ancient Aztecs point to ancient 
relations between that tribe and those farther north. In any case, 
it was not till later days that the Nahua tribes migrated into the 
plateaux lying around the city of Mexico, and from that centre they 
gradually spread as far as the Atlantic in the east, the Pacific in the 
west, and as far as Nicaragua in the south. The aborigines of the 
highlands occupied later by the Mexicans, and of the district formerly 
occupied by the Toltecs, near Tollan, the renowned seat of the 
Toltecs, were the linguistically isolated Otomi, of whom there are 
still numerous remnants pushed back into the mountains. In the 
west the Mexican uplands adjoined the territories of the Tarasco, 
which is now Michoacan. These were also an isolated linguistic 
group, and succeeded in defending themselves against the Mexican 
superiority. According to their migration sagas, they seem to have 
spread from the coast of the present state of Vera Cruz. In the 
present state of Oajaca, south of the tribes who speak the Nahuan 
language, there is another considerable linguistic group, including 
the Miztecs, who inhabit the western part of Oajaca, and the 
Zapotecs, who occupy the southern portion of that state. 

The marginal zone of the Gulf of Mexico was originally inhabited 
by a considerable number of different tribes, who gradually suc- 
cumbed, both in language and in civilization, to those of Nahua. 
Only the linguistically isolated Totonacs succeeded in maintaining 
their own language and culture down to historic time. Curiously 
enough, the Huaxtecs, who adjoined these Totonacs on the north, 
spoke a language akin to that of the Mayas. 

The basis of the economic life of the ancient Mexican tribes was 
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tillage, in all the three chief forms of it that are found in the Ameri- 
can continent. Forest-clearing was, of course, restricted to the 
damp lowlands covered with primeval forest. But, as the economic 
centre of Aztec civilization was in closer touch with the plateaux, 
forest-clearing in the actual centre of Nahuan civilization seems to 
have been of subordinate importance. The ancient Mexican pictorial 
writing, therefore, does not give as the symbol of tillage the stone 
axe or the pointed planting-stick, but a shovel-like wooden imple- 
ment, the hutctl1, and a basket into which earth or lime was shovelled 
—implements neither of which has anything to do with forest- 
clearing, but which were no doubt both used in terrace- and mound- 
culture. Two things at least are certain. Terrace-culture with 
artificial irrigation had a great vogue over large regions where 
Mexican civilization prevailed, and mound-culture was extensively 
practised in the low, marshy districts, Mounds similar to those 
which were raised in South America for plantation purposes are 
found in many parts of this region, and similar plantations in the 
form of ‘chinampas’—floating gardens—are still laid out by the 
people on the shores of Lake Tezcuco and Xochimilco. The chief 
crop was maize, but manioc, batata and beans, Spanish pepper (used 
as spice), tobacco, and cotton weregrown. After the crops had been 
gathered in they were stored in huge barns, or blockhouses, built 
close to the dwellings, or in huge earthenware receptacles roofed 
with straw. 

Vegetable food was prepared in many ways, and numerous 
beverages were made from vegetable material. Maize was boiled 
into a thick porridge, and a fermented liquor was produced 
from the juice of the stalks. Cocoa, with various additions, was 
much drunk by the aristocratic class, and pulque, an intoxicating 
liquor derived from the fermented sap of the agave plant, was con- 
sumed at the celebrations. The tobacco-leaf was smoked in stalks 
of cane, and it was also chewed by the priests in the form of pills, 
in order to rouse themselves to ecstasy. 

Animal food was used far less than vegetable food, but on festive 
occasions it was not lacking. It was got by hunting and fishing, 
but animals were also bred for this purpose. The hunters used bow 
and arrows, spears, spear-throwers, blowing-tubes, traps, and nets. 
Hares, stags, musk-pigs, various beasts of prey, forest-birds and sea- 
birds were hunted, as well as quails, which were used in sacrifice. 
At-certain seasons official battues were got up, in order to provide 

223 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


the game needed at the great sacrificial feasts. On the lakes 
fishing was pursued on a large scale with the use of nets, lines, and 
harpoons. Dogs, rabbits, pigeons, and turkeys were reared for the 
sake of their flesh. The turkeys were kept in cages made of staves. 
Human flesh was also highly esteemed as food by the ancient 
Mexicans, but only the flesh of the persons who had been the 
victims at religious celebrations was thus eaten. 

In the Mexican civilization each house lodged only one family ; 
it had only one fire-place, but included several subsidiary buildings 
—maize barns, sudatoria, etc. The style of house-building was 
dictated by the climate, and in particular by the frequency of earth- 
quakes. Inthe low grounds huts of twigs and matting, with a high 
roof of palm-leaves, were the rule; but on the cool uplands the 
houses were usually built of air-dried bricks (adobe). Stone was 
used only for temples and palaces. The ordinary house-furniture 
was very simple. Rush mats covered the floor, the bed was an 
erection with four posts, over which mats or hides were stretched. 
Stools of wood and seats of wickerwork were also common. 

The men wore a piece of cotton stuff, drawn through between the 
legs and hanging down in long lappets before and behind. The 
Tarascos and the Huaxtecs, who did not wear this garment, were 
considered indecent. The women wore a covering tied round the 
waist. In the hot low regions both men and women were naked as 
to the upper part of the body, but on the uplands the men wore a 
cape, knotted over the left shoulder, and the women a sleeveless 
jacket, or, on the Atlantic coast, a poncho-like garment. The feet 
were shod with sandals. The women all painted their bodies, using 
small, patterned stamps made of clay. Tattooing was confined for 
the most part to the Atlantic coast. Everyone wore lip, ear, and 
nose ornaments. These were made of various kinds of stone or 
shell, and all sorts of feathers were used as personal ornaments. 

With regard to manufactures, almost all branches of industry 
were fairly well developed. Though they had no potter’s wheel, 
the ancient Mexicans produced splendid ceramic and pottery work. 
Specially fine was the polychrome earthenware of Cholula with its 
brilliantly coloured surface and its inscriptions in pictorial writing. 
Even in ancient times it was exported to great distances. Vessels 
and receptacles, modelled into figure form and adorned with 
flourishes, were characteristic productions of their plastic art. 
Earthenware articles of every shape, from shallow plates to narrow- 
224 


foo PREOPUES VOB SLH Bey ART H 


necked goblets, were manufactured, as well as fumigating spoons 
and basins, rattles, whistles, and pipes, modelled heads and full 
figures, representing the entire pantheon of the ancient Mexicans. 

As to metalwork, it must be emphasized that in Mexico, as in the 
rest of America, the production of iron was unknown. Besides gold 
and silver, the only other metals employed were tin and copper. 
Gold was cast, chased, and beautifully polished and grained. Copper 
was worked into axes, chisels, hammers, and into the characteristic 
small, T-shaped knives, with half-moon blades, of Oajaca. 

Owing to the perishable nature of the material, few samples of 
woodwork have come down to us. But the spear-throwers were 
beautifully carved and the wooden drums were covered with richly 
sculptured ornament. 

Stone was used for numerous implements, like flint knives, 
obsidian knives, and many kinds of ornaments, as well as for the 
large, finely sculptured masonry of which outstanding examples are 
found in the buildings of Mitlain the Zapotec territories. The wall- 
decorations, pillars, and crypts are wonderful. Stone idols, large 
and small, have also been found in great numbers, and bear witness 
to high skill in stonework. 

In textile manufacture weaving was perhaps better developed 
than any other form of industry. They used a simple loom with a 
mechanical heddle, which seems to have resembled the loom used 
in ancient Peru. Cotton and agave fibre provided the threads, 
which were spun by means of a simple hand-spindle. Special 
mention should be made of the featherwork, in which the feathers 
were either fastened into a framework of net, or were gummed on 
to a substructure of bast. 

With regard to the social conditions in Mexican civilization, we 
must keep in mind that it was not one great political unit like 
ancient Peru, but a plurality of more or less independent, separate, 
economic communities. Even a century’s struggle failed to unify 
the small uplands of Mexico. It comprised the three states of 
Tenochtitlan, Tezcuco, and Tlacopan, which had formed a con- 
federation for offence and defence. Even the conquering expedi- 
tions of the last rulers of the Aztec state, Montezuma I, Axayacatl, 
Ahuizotl, and Montezuma II, did not achieve annexation, but only 
the occupation of the Boncuered territories by Mexican garrisons 
and the imposition of tribute. 

A king (tlato) was at the head of the separate supreme economic 

Pp 225 


THESPRIMITIVE RACESSORSIVUAN Kl 


communities, and these consisted of several separate gentes (clans), 
each having a province of its own. In each province the land to be 
tilled was from time to time divided among the families belonging 
to the gens. In the Aztec state this arrangement was broken up, 
because the kings invested higher and lower officials with conquered 
estates. This created a class of nobles alongside of the clan consti- 
tution, and a serf class entirely dependent on the nobles. These 
serfs, of course, had no possessions. At the time of the Spanish 
conquest the Aztec state was in process of development from a clan 
state to a feudal state. The gentes had become guilds, in which 
certain trades were native and hereditary, and which had definite 
quarters in the cities, 

Justice was well administered by a special body of judges. The 
punishments were severe. Even minor crimes were sometimes 
punished by death, or the culprits were sold as slaves. 

Trading was briskly carried on, and had developed into actual 
commerce. The larger cities had their market-places surrounded 
by business premises. Payments were made by means of money 
in various forms—cocoa-beans, feather-quills, with gold dust and 
woven goods. Among the Aztecs an actual merchant class had 
arisen, occupying a privileged position in the state, and performing 
not only purely commercial but also political functions by the 
great commercial expeditions which they sent to distant lands. 

With regard to means of communication in the larger sense, they 
had not only the fixed media of exchange already mentioned, but also 
their pictorial writing and an elaborate system of computing time. 

Fortunately for us, a considerable number of examples of the 
ancient Mexican pictorial writing have been preserved. These are 
done in colour on stag-hide and on a sort of paper, made of the bast 
of the fig-tree or of agave-leaf fibres. Most of them are merely 
pictorial renderings of mythological conceptions, of a calendaric 
and augural character. These pictures consist of groups of mythical 
figures, regularly associated with definite signs for the days, so that 
the connexion between the pictures and definite portions of the 
calendar could be determined. There is very little that can be 
called ‘writing’ in the narrower sense, 1.e., a representation of 
phonetic sounds, although something approaching to it is found in 
a few codices dealing with historical and legal subjects. In these 
codices proper names of persons and places are rendered in the form 
of ideograms, or in groups of pictures put together in rebus form. 
225 


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THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


One and the same method of dividing time was employed by all 
the tribes comprised in the circle of Mexican civilization. The 
basal unit of the calendar was the tonalamatl, a unit of 260 (20 X 13) 
days, each day having its own specific pictorial representation. 
This was found by a successive combination of twenty day signs 
taken from concrete things, like flint, house, rabbit, cane, etc., 
with thirteen figures. Seeing, however, that this unit of time does 
not agree with the solar year, and as the 365 days of the solar 
year cannot be divided either by twenty or by thirteen, each solar 
year had to begin with a different sign, and from this it took its 
name. After fifty-two years the same combination of day signs 
and numbers recurred as on the first day of the first year, and this 
was the reason why special significance was attached to this period 
of fifty-two years. 

In ancient Mexico not only all intellectual culture, but also all 
economic life, was dominated by religion; and this religion had 
been reduced to a rigid system by an organized priesthood. In 
view of the large part played by agriculture in their economic life, 
it is not surprising that religious conceptions and ceremonies of 
worship were closely bound up with that aspect of economic life. 
Further, because a due amount of rain was essential for suc- 
cessful crops, magical ceremonies, meant to secure the needed 
rainfall, filled a large place in the worship. 

A striking feature in Mexican worship, and one which con- 
trasts strongly with their comparatively high civilization, was 
the numerous human sacrifices, with their attendant cannibalistic 
banquets. Thousands of prisoners of war are said to have been 
sacrificed at the great services of dedication of the temples. The 
sources speak, no doubt with some exaggeration, of 20,000 or even 
80,000 prisoners who were sacrificed by King Ahuizotl at the 
consecration of a great temple. Expeditions were frequently 
undertaken against neighbouring tribes merely for the purpose 
of obtaining the requisite number of prisoners for forthcoming 
celebrations, and the sources declare that Mexico and its allies made 
a treaty with Tlaxcala, Huexotzinco, and Cholula to the effect that 
on the first day of every month battles should be fought for this 
purpose. Nor was it prisoners of war alone who were thus dealt 
with; slaves and infants were similarly sacrificed. Human sacri- 
fices were offered at all the agricultural celebrations and at other 
seasonal feasts. At the Feast of Toxcatl, in the month of May, 
228 | 


Etter ROPGHS Ouse Mh WAR DE 


when the sun was in the zenith over the city of Mexico, they sacri- 
ficed a youth who had for a whole year represented the deity 
Tezcatlipoca, and had been worshipped as such. The sacrifice 
usually took place on the platform of the temple-pyramid. The 
victim was laid backward over a cylindrical stone and held down 
by five acolytes, while the high priest in person cut his breast open 
with a broad-bladed flint knife and tore out his heart. His body 
was boiled with maize and eaten at a subsequent feast. 

Animals were also sacrificed, especially dogs and quails, and self- 
mutilations were not uncommon. Worshippers pierced their ears 
or tongue, or, in some districts, their genitals, with a bone dagger, 
and, to increase the pain, drew a string with cross-bars or thorns 
through the wound. The blood thus shed was considered to have 
magical power. Worship was also associated with votive offerings 
and libations, prayer, confession, and fasting. Almost all services 
were accompanied by fumigations, which were performed by means 
of fumigating spoons and basins. 

The worship took place in the temples, and these were for the 
most part everywhere of the same type. They were truncated 
pyramids, rising in steps. On the top was a sanctuary with stone 
images of the deities. Round the temple lay a spacious court, 
containing all the subsidiary buildings, a platform for the skulls of 
slain foes, and a field for ball-play. In front of the pyramid itself 
stood a large sacrificial vessel to receive the blood and the hearts 
of the victims. 

The priests were not only the depositaries of the old religious 
traditions, powerfully influencing the development of Mexican 
forms of worship ; they were also the actual executive in all the 
more important acts of worship. In attendance at all the temples 
were priests to carry through the sacrifices. These included sooth- 
saying priests, masters of ceremonies, hymnists, singers, and 
musicians, as well as temple-cleaners. At the head of the priesthood 
were two high priests, equal in rank, the Totec Tlamacazqui and the 
Tlaloc Tlamacazqui. One of these was in the service of the deity 
Uitzilopochtli, and the other in that of the rain-god Tlalocantecutli. 
They bore the title of Quetzalcoatl, and were considered to be the 
successors of that divine hero. Priests received their training in 
special seminaries, and they entered on their training in early 
manhood. 


The ancient Mexican pantheon, as found among the Aztecs, is 
229 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


not of one common origin, but arose from the subsequent fusion of 
various local deities. While the sun-god, Uitzilopochtli, was the 
acknowledged national deity of the Aztec capital city, Tenochtitlan 
—Mexico—the wind-god, Quetzalcoatl, came originally from the 
east, from the shore of the Gulf of Mexico; and several of the 
agrarian deities belonged originally to the same locality. 

Cosmic powers were represented by three divinities. The first 
was the national god of the Aztecs, Uitzilopochtli, a sun-god. At 
his birth he sprang in full panoply from the womb of his mother, 
Earth, to drive away the stars, the army of his brothers, who hated — 
him. The second deity, Quetzalcoatl, has distinctly lunar features, 
although he seems to combine various elements. He was originally 
the great hero of the legendary aborigines, the Toltecs. Driven 
forth by his enemies, he travels ever eastward to meet the sun, 
and finally, when he reaches the Eastern Sea, he is consumed in 
fire. His heart becomes the morning star. Evidently, this is a 
description of the course of the moon. But Quetzalcoatl is also 
the wind-god, who prepares the way for the rain-god. Hence he 
is represented on the monuments and in the pictorial writing with 
his lips in the attitude of blowing. The cosmic character of the 
third deity is not quite so clear. He is Tezcatlipoca, the “smoking 
mirror,’ the youthful deity of the warrior. He is also the god of 
night and of avenging punishment. 

Among the agrarian deities are the earth-goddess, Tlatolzeotl, and 
her son, the maize-deity, Centeotl. The sowing of the maize took 
place under the auspices of the deity Xipe Totec. His feast was 
celebrated in spring, and was marked by rites of exceptional cruelty. 
The stone images of this deity were wrapped in human skin—the 
skin that had been flayed from the victim sacrificed in his stead. 
One of the ceremonies at his feast was the flaying of the victims, and 
the worshippers dressed themselves in the skins. Then there was 
the rain-god, Tlaloc, who lives on the hill-tops and pours the rain 
on the earth out of jars. 

The ancient Mexican methods of disposing of the dead were 
dictated by their religious conceptions. The manner in which a 
person died determined his fate in the Beyond. Those who had 
fallen in battle, or been sacrificed by the enemy as captives, became 
attendants of the sun; and the same lot befell women who had 
died in childbed. Effigies of those who died thus were mummified 
and burned. Those who had died of fever or leprosy, those who 
230 


Web PROPER S. Obes bebe WARK DEL 


were struck by lightning, and those who had met their death by 
drowning passed into the realm of the rain-god. Their bodies were 
buried. Those who died an ordinary death passed into the deep 
netherworld, into Mictlan. They were enwrapped in a crouching 
posture and burned. The ashes, along with a precious stone, 
representing the heart, were laid away in a stone casket. 

2. Tribes under the Influence of Maya Civilization. This region 
includes the three districts occupying the south-east part of the 
present Mexico, viz., Tabasco, Chiapas, and Yucatan, and the region 
that is now Guatemala. It should be noted, however, that this 
territory is intersected by a long strip dominated by Aztec influence. 

The Maya group of tribes comprises several subgroups speaking 
different dialects. The most important are the Yucatecs, in the 
chalk district of Yucatan, poorly watered, containing much jungle 
and steppe, the Chiche and Cachiquel, on the volcanic plateaux of 
Guatemala, the Chol in the tropical forest areas of Tabasco. 

The material civilization of these areas is, in its main features, 
similar to that of the tribes in the Mexican area. Vegetable food 
predominates, and tillage forms the chief part of economic life. 
There seems, however, to have been no terrace-culture with its 
artificial irrigation—the lack of water made that impossible. The 
chief crop was maize. It was harvested twice a year. Other crops 
included beans, yuca, cocoa, various species of tree fruit, pepper, 
tobacco, and cotton. As in Mexico, dogs and turkeys were bred. 
Bee-keeping, too, was largely practised. Hunting and fishing sup- 
plied the animal food, which was mainly consumed in connexion 
with the celebrations. The hunting was carried on by large battues, 
and the hunters used spear-throwers, bows and arrows, and traps. 
In Guatemala they also used the blowing-tube. Fish were taken 
by means of nets and by poisoning the waters. 

The houses in Yucatan were usually of wood or stone or air-dried 
bricks, with steep roofs of straw or palm-leaves. A wall running 
lengthwise in the middle with two door openings divided the house 
into two apartments. One of these was the guest-room ; the other 
was the store-room and sleeping apartment. ‘The houses were built 
on a foundation of stone, or on wooden piles. Several families lived 
ineach. In Guatemala the houses, which were simple huts thatched 
with straw, had also two apartments. 

The clothing of the Maya tribes was made of cotton materials, 


daintily ornamented with figure patterns. Only in Guatemala 
231 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


neque and agave fibres were used. Up to five years of age the 
children went naked ; at that age boys began to wear a small apron 
round the middle, and girls aloinskirtlet. Tattooing was universal 
both among men and women. Sandals were made of leather or of 
agave fibre. 

As to social conditions, each gens had its own district, and each 
family of the clan had its own allotment, which belonged to it from 
generation to generation. This distribution, however, referred 
merely to the produce of the soil—the work of tillage was done 
conjointly by all members of the gens. The allotment of the head — 
of the gens was tilled in the same way. There were no lands 
specially set apart for the priests. 

Politically, the population was divided into numerous separate 
communities. Yucatan was occupied by no fewer than seven 
small states of this kind, and the various village-heads were sub- 
ordinate to the leaders of these states. 

Temple architecture in these areas was even more highly de- 
veloped than in Mexico. The temple ruins of Palenque, Uxmal, 
and Chichen-Itza, of which beautiful models in relief have been 
preserved, are worthy of special mention. The religious festivals 
were Closely associated with agriculture, and dramatic performances 
by masked dancers formed an important part of the ceremonies. 

The Maya tribes also possessed a highly developed pictorial 
writing and an elaborate calendar. The Maya picture-writing 
consists of pictorial representations of conceptions, not of sounds. 
Each picture is regularly accompanied by signs explaining the 
meaning, and the original representation, simplified down to essen- 
tials, is sketched in small, unvarying oval or rectangular fields. The 
writing of figures is well developed—there is even a special sign for 
zero—and the figures themselves have special digital values. In all 
essentials the calendar resembled that of the Mexican area. 

Among the religious conceptions of the Maya the splendid sagas 
of the creation of the world and the tribal legends are specially re- 
markable. We have two books of the legends of the upland tribes 
—the Popul Vu of the Chiche and the Annals of the Cachiquel. We 
are told of a series of creations of man. The earlier ones, made 
of clay and wood, were successively destroyed by catastrophes ; 
the last creation was from maize spikes and still continues. The 
creative gods were two in number and have many of the features 
of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca. 

230 


NEES PROP ES) © RAR EARS RET 


3. The Most Southerly Tribes of Central America. Inthesouth- 
west part of Central America, comprising the modern states of 
Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, we have two groups 
of tribes of very different civilization. First, on the Pacific side 
of this area, up to the north frontier of Panama, there are tribes 
of a fairly advanced civilization, and on the Atlantic slope from 
Honduras southward tribes at a very primitive stage. 

The aborigines of Nicaragua were the Mangue, but the immigra- 
tion of Nahua elements split them into two completely separate 
parts. In Costa Rica the most intelligent people were the Guetaru, 
whose chief settlements were in the neighbourhood of the modern 
cities of San José and Cartago. Rich finds of antiquities, in clay, 
stone, and gold—the latter chiefly from the Chiriqui area—bear 
witness to the high civilization of these peoples. Specially note- 
worthy are stone chairs of state, four-legged stone boundary-marks 
in animal shapes and the black gold breastplates shaped like eagles, 
spiders, and other creatures. 

Honduras is inhabited by a considerable number of tribes, 
speaking different languages, Xinca, Lenca, and others, who are 
more akin in civilization to the Mayas than the more southerly 
tribes. Tillage forms a large part of their economic life. Con- 
trasted with these, the tribes who inhabit the forest river-areas of 
Nicaragua, the Sumo and the Mosquito and the Costa Rica tribes 
belonging to the Talamanca linguistic group, are more on a level 
with the South American tribes. Hunting and fishing are more pro- 
minent among them, and tillage is limited to the culture of certain 
species of palm and, more recently, of the banana. The square 
house is replaced by the house on a round or oval base, with roof 
reaching to the ground. Instead of cotton clothing, they wear 
clothing made of bark. 


THE TRIBES OF SOUTH AMERICA 


These fall into two great divisions strongly contrasted in civiliza- 
tion—the more cultured tribes inhabiting the high ground of the 
Andes, and those primitive tribes who inhabit the large area east 
of these mountains. This latter area includes the Southern Andes 
and the southern part of modern Chili. 

The civilization of the Andean tribes did to some extent affect 
the neighbouring areas, especially the immediately adjacent Chaco 


233 


THE PRIMITIV-E (RACES “OR@YVLAN KENae 


and the northern part of Chili, but there has always been a very clear 
line of division between their culture and that of the forest tribes of 
Bolivia and Brazil. The civilization of ancient Peru centred almost 
entirely round the breeding of the llama, therefore it could never 
take root for any length of time in the wet forest areas east of the. 
Andes, in which it was impossible for the Auchenia species of animals 
to find a living. 

Ethnographically, the South American tribes east of the Andes 
fall into two main groups. In the one tillage, in the form of forest- 
clearing, is the pivot on which all economic life turns ; the other - 
lives on hunting and fishing and primitive gathering. It is perhaps 
worth while to repeat here that the primitive races of South America 
have never carried on stock-raising in any form. In connexion with 
our division of these tribes into two ethnographical groups, it should 
be specially noticed that in this part of South America, east of the 
Andes, which is largely covered with jungle, the forest Indians who 
practise tillage hold the predominant position both politically and 
economically, whereas the tribes that roam about are either looked 
upon by them as bitter enemies and kept at a distance, or are 
reduced either peacefully or by force to a position of economic 
dependence. In the southern part of the continent, bounded by 
the northern and eastern frontier of the Gran Chaco, the country is 
for the most part steppe, and therefore there is either no tillage at 
all, or the peoples who do till the soil in the scattered forest areas are 
dependent on the tribes that hunt. This is very clearly seen in the 
manner in which the Guanas are dependent on the Mbaya tribes. 

We have thus, from the ethnographical point of view, these four 
groups of the South American tribes : 


(1) Those who have no tillage, first, in the area lying to the east 
of the Andes and south of the northern frontier of the 
Chaco, but crossing the Andes in the southern part of Chili ; 
and, second, scattered over the northern forest area among 
the tilling tribes. 

(2) The tillage tribes in the northern forest area. 

(3) The ancient inhabitants of the Antilles and the Bahamas. 

(4) The civilized peoples of the Andean area. 


I. The Tribes that have no Tillage. “Fuegians’ isthe name given 
toanumber of tribes inhabiting the south point of South America, 
They are so called because Magalhaes, when he went through the 


234 


Ite PEOPLES OF THE EARTH 


strait that bears his name (Magellan Strait) in 1520, noticed the 
numerous fires of the natives and called the country Tierra de los 
Fuegos (Fireland). 

The Fuegians proper comprise two tribes, linguistically distinct, 
but resembling each other in many ways culturally. They are the 
Yagan, inhabiting the most southerly part of the archipelago at the 
south end of South America, and the Alakaluf, or Peshere, who are 
spread over the western islands off the south coast of Chili. The 
Tshono, who adjoin the latter on the north up to the island of 
Chiloé, have exactly the same civilization, although they belong 
linguistically to the Araucans. 

The Fuegians are culturally of a very low type. They are 
water nomads, spending a great part of their life on the water in 
their boats. The boats are made of pieces of tree-bark sewn to- 
gether. The people exist chiefly on fishing, living on the shellfish 
and crabs and other lowly animals of that kind. During the short 
intervals that they spend ashore they live in primitive houses made 
of large branches covered with brushwood, moss, and bark. Their 
chief hunting implements are the spear-thrower, with which they kill 
guanacos, otters, and sea-fowl, and the harpoon, for hunting seals 
and even whales. They also use bows and arrows, and slings, which 
latter they probably borrowed from the neighbouring Ona. Sea- 
fowl are also caught by means of nooses made of fish-bone. 

Their clothing is very scanty, considering the raw climate, es- 
pecially in the cold winter months. A small triangular apron of 
leather is the chief female garment, and the men wear a small piece 
of hide over their shoulder. Even their ornaments are of a very 
simple kind, for they have few tools with which to make anything. 
Stone axes are unknown. They have hardly anything of the kind 
except small awls made of horn or bone and chisels made of shell. 
They have no earthenware vessels ; their simple pails are made of 
bark, and they use a curious kind of basket made by coilwork. 
They make fire, not by perforating wood like other Indians, but by 
striking together flints or pieces of iron. 

Socially, the Yagan and Alakaluf live in families, but, as polygamy 
prevails, a family sometimes consists of a considerable number of 
persons. On reaching puberty, Yagan boys pass through certain 
ceremonial rites. In former times the boys were confined in a 
special hut and compelled to do certain tasks. 

Their religious conceptions are of a very simple kind. Nature is 


235 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


believed to be animated by a number of demons, who send storms 
and other misfortunes, and have to be entreated by priests. The 
dead were wrapped in skins and buried in the heaps of shell refuse 
close to their huts. 

The Ona tribe, who inhabit the east islands of Tierra del Fuego, 
are usually classed with the Fuegians, but linguistically they are 
akin to the Patagonians, the Tehuelche, and are distinct from the 
other Fuegians. Culturally, also, they have little in common 
with them—they have no boats, and they live exclusively on land. 
They are a wretched people, hunting merely with bow and arrow; . 
unlike their northern kin, they have not evenadoptedthehorse. At 
the present time this tribe, which was formerly far more numerous, 
has been reduced to a few individuals by the ruthless war of exter- 
mination waged against them by gold-seekers and sheep-breeders. 

The Patagonians, Tehuelche or Tsoneka, are Indians living a 
roving, nomadic life on the Patagonian plateau. As has been already 
said, this tribe is linguistically akin to the Ona, but there is this 
economic difference between them, that, after coming into contact 
with the Spaniards, they adopted the use of the horse and became 
good horsemen. Almost their only food is guanacos and ostriches, 
which they hunt on horseback and dispatch with lance and bolas. 
Horse-flesh is eaten only at special celebrations. Wild fruits and 
tuberous roots are their only vegetable food. The dwelling is a 
movable tent of hide, and the horse is the beast of burden when they 
change their place of abode. Their clothing is made from raw hide, 
leather, or woven material. The chief garment, both for men and 
women, is a large cloak of hide, underneath which the women wear 
a large skirt reaching from shoulders to ankles, and the men an 
apron round the middle. Their silver ornaments resemble those of 
the Araucans, and are probably imitated from them. The most 
striking item is a large silver pin, used to fasten the female skirt. 

Socially, the most remarkable feature is the manner in which 
several small communities temporarily combine to form larger ones, 
under a head chief. But these soon break up again into their 
original units. Blood-vengeance leads to frequent feuds and 
quarrels between the separate units. 

At birth or at death, or when girls reach a marriageable age, or 
at marriages, there are festivities at which men perform dances and 
horses are sacrificed. Illnesses are believed to be due to evil spirits, 
and, as in most other parts of South America, magical incantations 


236 


miue PROPEHS = OH? LHEVRAR TH 


are performed by medicine-men. The dead are buried, and cairns 
of stones are erected over the graves. 

The Pampas Indians are now practically extinct. As a result 
of European immigration, the tribes on the lower reaches of the 
Rio dela Plata that were strongest at the time of the Spanish Con- 
quest—the Charrua in the north and the Querendi in the south— 
soon died out, and we have little detailed information about their 
linguistic connexion, or their manner of life. The other tribes were 
so completely cleared out by the Argentine Government under 
General Roca in 1880 that very few of them are left, and even these 
live in a state of miserable subjection. The Puelche, also, who were 
formerly a numerous people, the ‘Easterners,’ and whose manner of 
life resembled that of the Patagonians, are now practically extinct. 

The civilization of the Araucans, or Moluche, has undergone 
many changes in the course of time. The Empire of the Incas, 
under its last rulers, extended its dominion as far as Rio Maule in 
northern Chili, and, of course, the ancient Peruvian civilization 
strongly affected the Araucans. When the Spaniards first entered 
the country they found a people here with a comparatively ad- 
vanced civilization, tilling the ground and breeding llamas. Maize, 
sweet potatoes, and quinoa millet were their chief crops. Pottery, 
weaving, and metalwork had attained a fairly advanced stage. 
The people lived in scattered blockhouses under the government 
of an aristocracy of several grades. From 1550 onward, when the 
Spaniards, under Almagro and Pedro de Valdivia, had gained a firm 
footing, there were several centuries of almost continuous warfare 
between the newcomers and the Araucans; until, in 1882, a last 
campaign finally broke the Araucan power, and the last independent 
Araucan region was occupied by the Chilians. 

At an early stage of these hostile encounters the contact with 
the Spaniards caused great changes in Araucan civilization. The 
Araucans, who were still left in the country, had become splen- 
did horsemen and cattle-breeders ; and they are still living in the 
province of Arauco as a Christian people under Chilian rule. A 
large number of them, however, had trekked from their territory, 
crossed the Cordilleras eastward, and spread over the pampas area. 
These tribes, among whom the Ranqueles were the chief, gradually 
intermingled with the tribes in the pampas, the Puelche and the 
Patagonians, adopted their manner of life, and became nomadic 
hunters. 


237 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


In battle the Araucans wielded heavy clubs, but lances were 
also common weapons. The Araucans in Chili use large, carved, 
wooden digging sticks, and their clothing recalls that of the ancient 
Peruvians. Silver ornaments are largely worn, and the large ear- 
plates and the pins for fastening the clothing have retained many 
of the ancient shapes. 

The Gran Chaco, that extensive area of steppe, jungle, palm- 
groves, and marshy land, lying between 17° and 30° lat., on the one 
side, and between the Andes and the River Paraguay on the other, 
is inhabited by tribes belonging to quite a number of linguistic — 
families found only in this area. The Tshiriguano, in the extreme 
west, belong to the Tupi linguistic family, and the Guana, an in- 
dependent Arawak tribe, living an agricultural life among the 
Mbaya tribes, belong to linguistic families whose only other re- 
presentatives are found in the large forest areas north and east of 
the Chaco. Apart from these exceptional tribes, there are four 
great linguistic families of Chaco tribes—the Guaicuru group, the 
Mascoi, or Muscovi, group, the Mataco group, and the Tshamacoco, 
or Samuco, group. 

To the Guaicuru group, whose warlike qualities and first-rate 
organization gave the Spaniards a great deal of trouble, belong the 
Guaicuru or Mbaya proper, whom the Spaniards found in the middle 
of the sixteenth century in the neighbourhood of the modern 
Asunc¢ion. They lived originally in Northern Chaco, but crossed to 
the left bank of the Paraguay River. The Cadiuco, near Miranda 
in Matto Grosso, are the only representatives left out of all their 
hordes. 

The most important tribe of the Guaicuru group to-day, the Toba, 
roams about as a robber nomadic people, in the wide area between 
Rio Salado and Rio Pilcomayo, up to the Bolivian frontier and deep 
into Northern Chaco. They still enjoy complete independence. 
The Pilaga, on the middle reaches of the Pilcomaga, are a subdivision 
of the Toba. 

To the same Guaicuru group belongs also the Abiponi tribe, now 
almost extinct. As late as the eighteenth century they rendered 
the wide areas on the Rio Bermezo as far as Cordoba unsafe. They 
are well known from the classical description of them by the Jesuit 
father Dobrizhoffer. 

Lastly, the Guaicuru group also comprises the Payagua, who are 
exceptional among the Chaco tribes in possessing good dug-outs. 


238 








ARAUCANS WITH LOOM 
South America. From a photograph in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 








YAGAN INDIANS, TIERRA DEL FUEGO 238 
South America. From Deneker and Hyades 


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BOLIOULY YNOS eollauly YyNOS 
6€z NVNOM NVIGNJ OONIAGVD NVYWOMA NVIGNJ OOOOVNVHD 











Monee OPER SOR WE BAR EH 


At the time of the conquest they joined the Guato in a piracy that 
made river traffic on the Upper Paraguay dangerous. For a long 
time a small remnant of them lived a peaceful life in a separate 
quarter of the city of Asuncion, but some years ago they were 
expelled for alleged sanitary reasons, and they have disappeared in 
the wilds of the Chaco. 

The tribes belonging to the Mascot or Muscovi group (they used 
to be classed under the collective name of Lengua) are the Lengua 
proper, the Angaite, the Sanapana, and the Guana del Chaco, who 
must not be confused with the Araucan Guana. They live in an 
uninterrupted strip on the right bank of the Paraguay, north-west 
of Concepcion between 24° and 21° south latitude. 

The Mataco group consists of the Mataco tribes who adjoin the 
Toba on the middle and upper course of the Bermezo. With the 
exception of the Tshorote, they have gradually fallen under the 
subjection of the whites. 

The so-called ‘tame Tshamacoco’ have been subdued by the 
Paraguayans and live on the River Paraguay, but their kindred, the 
Tumanaha, have maintained their independence and inhabit the 
little-known wilds in the north-west. 

In connexion with this brief conspectus of the Chaco tribes, it 
must be clearly understood that at the present time, as in the time 
before the discoveries, there is much migration and intermingling 
among the various tribes. 

The outstanding feature in the economic life of these Chaco tribes 
is that there is practically no tillage. On the other hand, the region 
supplies a very large number of wild food plants, like the algarroba 
(Prosopis horrida), whose fruits are so extremely nourishing. From 
these fruits and from honey an intoxicating liquor is made. There 
are also some species of the Bromeliacee, which yield a kind of 
carob-bean, and all sorts of palms, including the Caranday or wax- 
palm. The Chaco tribes are first and foremost hunters and fisher- 
men. Fish are caught in nets and traps and with bows and arrows. 
In hunting the tribesmen use bows and arrows, a bow that pro- 
pels earthenware bullets, and a short round wooden club with a 
thickened end. The economic life of the tribes has been materially 
changed by their adoption of the horse, and the majority of them, 
like their neighbours to the south, are expert horsemen. The 
northern tribes, the Tshamacoco and the Tshorote, have not done 
so, and do all their hunting on foot. 


239 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


Many of the Chaco tribes do not sail at all. They have no boats, 
and cross the rivers in a pelota, made of raw hide. Others, like the 
Lengua and the Cadiuco, have dug-outs, and the Payagua used 
to be both well known and greatly feared as sailors on the Alto 
Paraguay. 

In keeping with their unsettled life, their dwellings are simple and 
lightly constructed. The Mataco live in very primitive huts made 
of branches bent together. Others make huts of grass, like bee- 
skeps, or shelters made of rush mats fastened to trees or poles 
(Tshamacoco). Others again, like the Toba on the Paraguay, erect . 
their shelters as one long continuous hall, in which several families 
live together, sleeping on wooden platforms. The winter villages 
of the Cadiuco are more strongly built, but they too consist of one 
long continuous row of huts with similar arrangements for sleep. 

The original clothing of the men seems to have been a fringed 
belt of leather, but to-day they wear a woven cotton loin-cloth. 
Their ornaments are of a simple kind—strings of European glass 
beads, seed kernels, teeth, pieces of reed, and unique plates of shell. 
Many of them wear ornaments in their ears and lips. The ear-pegs 
of the Pilaga and the Tshorote are large, and the lip-pegs worn by 
the Lengua Indians have caused them to be so named. Painting 
of the body and tattooing are very common. The Cadiuco paint 
large portions of the body with patterns, using wooden stamps for 
the purpose. The Tshamacoco are specially distinguished for their 
beautiful feather ornaments. 

Their tools are also simple. The Chaco territory, as a whole, is 
poor in stone, and, therefore, stone tools are rare, with the excep- 
tion of grindstones and stones for milling. These are frequently 
brought from great distances. The Tshamacoco are unique in 
having at the end of their large, heavy digging sticks a small stone 
axe-blade, this blade being used in gathering honey. Wooden 
tobacco-pipes are much used, and many of them are beautifully 
carved. 

There are several interesting points in connexion with the social 
conditions of the Chaco tribes. Various social grades have grown 
up. The warlike Guaicuru had not only common warriors or 
braves, but also a kind of war nobility, who enjoyed special honours 
and used a special style of address in conversing with each other. 
Out of this nobility arose the rank of chief. A portion of the popu- 
lation is to all intents and purposes in slavery. Among the Mbaya 
240 


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GuATO INDIAN PARESSI INDIAN 240 


South America South America 
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GIRL AND Boy, PAREssI INDIANS 241 
South America 
Photos Author 


Pou PROPGES lO heEH rok AR DE 


whole sections of the Guana population were in this condition. The 
Mataco and the Guaicuru cut off the heads of their slain foes and 
scalped them. The ‘wild’ Tshamacoco, the Tumanaha, have sub- 
tribes under one common head-chief, who resides in turn with the 
subordinate chiefs. 

Their festivities are determined by the ripening of the food crops, 
especially that of the algarroba. Many of the tribes have a great 
dread of the souls of the departed. The Abiponi endeavoured to 
prevent the soul escaping at death by stifling the dying person 
under a thick, heavy hide and the Tshiriguano forced the dying 
person into a large earthenware urn. For the same reason the 
Toba buried alive people who had grown infirm with age. 

In the extensive marshy areas where the San Lorenzo flows into 
the Paraguay there now live the few survivors of a tribe so unlike 
any of the other South American Indians that they cannot be 
classed with any of them. These are the Guato Indians. They 
are aquatic in habit to a degree beyond any other Indian tribe and 
spend a large part of their life on long journeys in their well-con- 
structed dug-outs. Their physical appearance, the long bushy 
beards of the men, their strange monosyllabic speech, all tend to 
distinguish them from all other Indian tribes, and their economic 
life is entirely different from that of any other Indian tribe hitherto 
known. 

Their chief sources of food are fishing, hunting, and gathering 
what nature provides. Curiously enough, the only implements 
used in fishing are bows and arrows. The arrow frequently takes 
the form of a harpoon with detachable point. Nets and baskets 
they never use, probably because the waters are so full of fish. 
Their chief hunting weapon is again bow and arrow, but of a larger 
kind. Blunt-pointed arrows are used for shooting birds and for 
shooting down fruit from trees, and they also use for these purposes 
the clay bullets of the Chaco tribes. Jaguars and crocodiles are 
hunted with long lances of wood. Formerly these were provided 
with a point of jaguar-bone, but the lances now used are pointed 
with iron. The food they gather is chiefly bananas, which grow 
wild in these parts, the grains of a wild species of rice, and the fruit 
of the akuri-palm. They do no forest-clearing, but they grow some 
crops by means of mound-culture. The marshy ground is under 
water for most of the year, and here and there rise the mounds of 
earth, the atterrados, which were constructed by the predecessors 

Q 241 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


of the modern Guatos for the growing of akuri-palms and other 
crops, and which are still used for that purpose. 

The actual dwellings of the Guato are always near a stream. 
They are only inhabited during the short season when the palm- 
wine is available, and, as a rule, each family lives apart from all 
neighbours. This, of course, means that the houses are single 
dwellings. When the rise of the water in spring opens up larger 
waterways the Guato brave takes his wife and children and most 
of his belongings, abandons his solitary dwelling, and proceeds to 
hunt in his long dug-out. The typical Guato house consists of a 
gable-shaped structure of poles, with two roof-sides of palm-leaf 
meeting at the top and reaching to the ground. The two gable- 
ends are open. The floor is roughly rectangular. Close to the 
inside of the slanting roof is an erection of poles, on which are kept 
the utensils which would be injured by the wet. There the Guato 
keeps his arrows. 

Many Indians sleep in hammocks, but the Guato tribe does not 
use them. They sleep on the ground, on large wicker mats covered 
with animal skins. In dry weather they sleep in the open, in front 
of the house. Over the couch is hung a large net made of the leaf 
fibres of the tucan-palm to keep off the mosquitoes which swarm in 
incredible numbers in these regions. 

At some distance from the houses, either in the jungle or on the 
mounds, are the plantations of akuri-palm, from which a potent 
intoxicating liquor is made. High up on the palm-stem a hole is 
bored downward. Here the palm-wine collects and ferments in 
twenty-four hours. ‘The entire family sits up aloft in the crown of 
the trees, and drinks the sap through asmallreed. Men and women 
wend their way home in the evening, heavy with their potations. 

Ground stone tools are absolutely unknown. Rough stones are 
used to pound the kernels of the akuri-palm. In contrast to the 
usual practice among South American Indians, most of the food is 
boiled, and large cooking pots, roughly fashioned from clay, are 
used. Larger clay jars are used for holding water. Basketry is of 
the most primitive kind imaginable, The whole ménage has a 
dreary appearance. Altogether, the civilization can only be com- 
pared with that of European man of the earlier Stone Age. 

Lhe Indian Tribes without Tillage in the Northern Forest Area of 
South America, The region here in view is the extensive area east 
of the Andes and north of the Gran Chaco and eastward as far as 
242 


GEE PEOPEES © OR} PHE KAR TH 


the state of Rio Grande do Sul. In many places it includes exten- 
sive areas of enclosed ground and of savannas broken by very few 
trees. Taken as a whole, the inhabitants of this area form two 
strata of population more or less sharply divided from each other 
in civilization. The larger stratum carries on forest-clearing; the 
other has no tillage of any kind, and their sole vegetable food is 
what they can gather. 

We take the latter first. These people either live scattered in 
small groups among the tribes that till the soil, or inhabit larger 
compact areas in the east. These are the various so-called Ges tribes. 
It is only these latter tribes in the eastern Brazilian plateau and the 
territory that slopes from that plateau to the sea that can be said 
to form a linguistic family, the Ges linguistic family, while each 
of the others speaks a language of its own. The language of the 
Guayaci, who roam over Paraguay and the adjacent parts of Brazil, 
belongs to the Tupi linguistic family, one of the principal linguistic 
families of the forest tribes that till the soil. 

Compared with the forest Indians who till the soil, all these tribes 
are at an extremely low level of civilization. They do not even 
have hammocks. Their house-construction is very primitive, and 
their industries are of the most elementary kind. Most of them 
are entirely ignorant of navigation. Almost the only exception are 
the Mura, who inhabit the low marshy ground on the Madeira and 
the Purus, and who were once greatly dreaded as river-pirates. All 
these either live in bitter enmity with the more civilized forest 
Indians and are mercilessly hunted down and killed by them, or 
they are subjugated by them and are employed in field work. 
This, of course, familiarizes the captives with the processes. A 
typical example of this latter condition is presented by the Trumai 
Indians on the Upper Xingu, who live as dependants of this kind 
among the Mehinaku. 

Other tribes, scattered among the tilling Indians, are the Macu 
on both banks of the lower Rio Negro, the Guahibo on the Upper 
Orinoco, and the Warrau, or Guarauno, on the Orinoco delta. There 
are also the western Ges tribes, chief among whom are the Chavantes 
and Cherentes, often called the ‘Central Ges,’ 

In two districts the lower types of Indian tribes have succeeded 
in maintaining against the higher tribes their ground in compact 
settlements. On the slopes of the eastern Brazilian plateau there 
are the tribes of the ‘East Ges,’ and in the centre of Matto Grosso, 


243 


THE PRIMITIVE RA GESTOEPANTANE UNG 


the Bororo, who have a language of their own. The ‘East Ges,’ 
then known as Tapuya, were once the bitter enemies of the Tupi 
tribes on the east coast of Brazil, and, at a later time, of the settlers, 
and the Bororo were for long the terror of the inhabitants of Matto 
Grosso. 

The classical account of Prince Maximilian of Wied has made the 
Botocudo the best known of the East Ges. Originally they in- 
habited all the forest region on the east coast of Brazil, but they 
are now confined to one district. 

Like the rest of the Ges tribes, the Botocudo are nomad hunters, 
without tillage, pottery, or weaving. They do not sail. They live 
in primitive huts and sleep on the ground. Apart from hunting 
and fishing, for both of which they use large bows and arrows, they 
only dig up roots and gather fruits of various kinds. They wear no 
clothing at all, but both men and women wore large lip-disks and 
large ear-pegs, and the men wore the penis-holder. Other orna- 
ments were necklets of animal teeth and claws. They painted 
their bodies in a very inartistic fashion. 

Their meat is roasted on spits or toasted in earth-pits or over hot 
stones. They boil water in the internodes of a large species of 
bamboo, or in folded palm-leaves. Cannibalism is common among 
them, although it is rare among the other Ges tribes. Disputes 
between groups are usually fought out in duels under special rules, 
which have been described by the Prince of Wied. The dead are 
buried in shallow pits inside the huts or under a covering. Lest 
the spirit of the dead should return, the dead bodies are put in 
chains, or the earth above the grave is stamped as hard as pos- 
sible. Another tribe of East Ges, notorious for their attacks on 
the colonists, was the Bugre or Shokleng in the state of Santa 
Catharina. 

The Bororo Indians are essentially similar to the Central Ges, 
especially to the Cayapo. They too wear the penis-holder, and, 
like the Cayapo, they are distinguished for the feather ornamenta- 
tion worn at their festivities, especially for the large rayed wheel of 
arara-feathers worn on the head. At the festivities feathers are 
stuck all over their bodies. 

Karl von den Steinen has given an interesting account of the 
social life of the Bororo, The men in the men’s house form the 
pivot around which their communal life turns. Only the older 
men live in families in small huts grouped round the large men’s 


244 


ot PHRORLES? © hr WARE 


house. Monogamy is the usual rule. The unmarried men sleep in 
the men’s house, and even the married men spend a large part of 
the day there. The dances and song-festivals, which usher in the 
hunting expeditions, take place there. Young girls are dragged 
into the men’s house, and are enjoyed there for a time by small 
groups of men. 

The Bororo have the custom of ‘after-burial.’ After the corpse 
has lain a fortnight in the earth it is exhumed, and the decayed 
flesh is separated from the bones. It is at this stage that the real 
death-rites are performed, and the skeleton is adorned and prepared 
for burial. It is packed into a shroud of wickerwork, along with 
offerings, and buried a second time. 

2. The Tillage Tribes in the Northern Forest Areas. We come 
now to the second stratum of population, among whom tillage, 
in the form of forest-clearing, is the basis of economic life, and 
who, as has been said, include the large majority of the Indian tribes 
who inhabit this area. 

Although the tropical forest area of South America is inhabited 
by a very large number of tribes linguistically different from each 
other, careful comparative study of the languages has shown that 
by far the most of these tribes belong to a comparatively small 
number of linguistic families scattered over the whole area. A 
glance at the linguistic map shows that all the Indian tribes east of 
the line Orinoco—Rio Negro—Madeira belong to one of the three 
great linguistic families, Tupi, Arawak, and Carib. The sole ex- 
ception are the Caraya Indians on the Araguaya. Forest-clearing 
plays a very subordinate part in their life, so that they occupy an 
intermediate place between the tilling and the non-tilling tribes. 
Other exceptions are tribes like the Suya on the Upper Xingu, and 
the Came, or Caingang, on the eastern tributaries of the Parana. 
These are Ges tribes who at a comparatively late period adopted 
the tilling activities of their neighbours. 

West of the line Orinoco—Rio Negro—Madeira linguistic con- 
ditions are much less uniform. Here we find representatives of the 
three great linguistic families already named, Tupi, Arawak, and 
Carib, and also two other great families, the Betoya, between the 
Uaupes, Yapura, and Rio Negro, and the Pano, on the Ucayali and 
further eastward. Besides, there are a large number of tribes or 
tribal groups who do not belong to any of these great families—the 
Otomacs on the western tributaries of the Orinoco, the Zaparo, and 


245 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


Jivaro (comprising numerous sub-tribes) between the Rio Napo and 
the Andes, the Catukina and the Tacana tribes on the Madre de 
Dios and Beni, and finally the Tshikito on the Mamore up to the 
Upper Paraguay. 

Of the numerous tribes belonging to the five great linguistic 
families of this area, only the most important can be mentioned 
here. We take first the tribes of the Tupi family. At the time of 
the discoveries the two most important centres were on the upland 
region between the Upper Parana and the Paraguay, and on the 
east coast of Brazil from the Amazon delta southward. But it is 
just in these two areas that least is left of the peculiar features of the 
original inhabitants. The life of the Guarani in the first region has 
been entirely transformed by the missionary activity of the Jesuits, 
who in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries turned the 
Guarani people into a theocratic communal state. The only inde- 
pendent Guarani tribe in these parts to-day is the Caingua. The 
once powerful tribes on the east coast of Brazil, the Tamoyo in the 
district where Rio de Janeiro now stands, the Tupinikin behind 
Santos and the Tupinamba around Rio, Porto Seguro, and Bahia, 
were compelled to take sides in the contests between the European 
colonizing powers, and were completely lost in the intermingling of 
population that subsequently took place. A third centre of the 
Tupi tribes was in the area watered by the Xingu and the Tapajos. 
On the Xingu were the Yuruna, Camayura, and the Aueté; on the 
Tapajos were the Munduruku and the Apiaca. Farther west were 
the Guarayo and, in the Northern Chaco, the later arrivals, the 
Tshiriguano. Apart by themselves on the Upper Marafion, were 
the Tupi tribes, the Omagua and the Cokama. 

The most widely distributed tribes in this tropical forest area are 
those of the Arawak linguistic family. At the time of the dis- 
coveries Arawak tribes were settled on the east coast of Guiana and 
Brazil down to the Amazon delta, where the Aruans in the island 
of Marajo became extinct not so long ago. These coast tribes 
were called Arawak, and this name came to be applied to the 
whole linguistic family. It was Arawak tribes also that the first dis- 
coverers found on the Greater Antilles. Theirlanguage, Taino, has 
given several well-known words to European vocabularies—tabako 
(tobacco), hamaka (hammock), kanua (canoe), mahiz (maize). On 
the Lesser Antilles they bore the name Allouages, but the Carib 
tribes drove them out. The area to the west of the Arawak is 
246 


Ht, PEOPLES OH EEE EA RCE 


inhabited chiefly by Carib tribes, with a slight intermixture of 
Arawaks, like the Wapishana; but on the Upper Orinoco and on 
the Amazon Arawak tribes are more numerous—the Maipure and 
Baniva on the Orinoco, the Tariana on the Uaupes, and the now 
almost extinct Manao at the confluence of the Rio Negro and the 
Amazon. Outlying on the north-west are the Goajiro, on the 
peninsula of that name in Venezuela, who under European in- 
fluence have become stock-farmers. From the middle Amazon 
upward there is a broad strip inhabited by Arawak tribes, up the 
Jurua and the Purus and south-west to the Cordilleras. The most 
important of these are the Paumari and Yamamadi on the Purus, 
the Ipurina and the Arauna on the Jurua; and in the Peruvian 
area there are the Anti (also called Campa or Matshiganga) and the 
now almost negligible Piro. From this point there runs in an 
eastward direction another strip of Arawak tribes. It crosses the 
Moxo in Bolivia and the Paressi at the sources of the Cabacal, 
Jauru, and Juruena, joining the Arawak tribes of the Upper Xingu. 
This strip contains the Mehinaku and the Yaulapiti, and comprises 
in its southern extent the Guana and the Tereno, close to the 
Northern Chaco. 

When they discovered the Greater Antilles the Spaniards heard 
of the raids of the cannibal Caribs, or Callinao, as they called them- 
selves. These came from the coast of the mainland and the Lesser 
Antilles, and plundered the islands of the West Indian Archipelago, 
which were occupied by Arawak tribes. Their chief object was to 
get wives. These Caribs have given their name to the third great 
linguistic group of the forest area. It is the main language of the 
hinterland of Guiana, between the Arawaks of the coast and those 
of the Upper Orinoco, but it formerly extended up to the north 
coast of Venezuela, and was spoken by the Tshaima and the 
Cumanagoto. The most important of these Carib tribes are the 
Galibi in French Guiana; the Macusi and Arecuna in British 
Guiana; farther south in Brazilian Guiana proper the Rucuyenne 
and Apalai, first described by Crevaux ; westward from these the 
Pianocoto ; and, in the extreme west, touching the Orinoco area, 
the Makirifare ; and, lastly, the Yauaperi, on the tributary of that 
name of the Rio Negro. In recent times Caribs (the Umaua) have 
settled in the area between the Upper Uaupes and the Yapura. A 
few Carib tribes even made their appearance in the forest areas 
south of the Amazon, the best known being the Bakairi and the 


24.7 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


Nahukua, who live on the Upper Xingu among Tupi and Arawak 
tribes. 

Of the Indian tribes belonging to the Betoya linguistic family, 
which is distributed over the territory between the Uaupes, Yapura, 
and Rio Negro, intermixed with Arawak tribes, we shall mention 
only the Tukano and the Kobéua. Of the numerous tribes in the 
Ucayali area who belong to the Pano linguistic family (named after 
the small tribe of Pano) we shall only mention the Conibo, Cashibo, 
and Shipibo. 

The pivot of the economic life of all these tribes of the tropical — 
forest area of South America is, as has been said, forest-clearing. 
The polished stone hatchet, the usual accompaniment of this primi- 
tive form of tillage, is the original and characteristic implement of 
all these tribes, although it has now been largely displaced by the 
European steel axe. The chief crop is the mandioca brava (Manthot 
utilissima of the family of Euphorbiacee). It is grown from cuttings. 
Maize is also grown, chiefly inthe west. It becomes rarer and rarer 
as one proceeds eastward. ‘They also grow sweet potatoes, beans, 
tobacco, and, to a less extent, cotton, the uruku, and some species 
of cane, which provides arrow-shafts ; several kinds of palm, especi- 
ally the pupunha-palm, some other fruit-trees, and, more recently, 
the banana, which was introduced into America by Europeans. 

Fishing and hunting provide the animal food. Cattle-raising is 
entirely unknown. Fishing is far more prominent than hunting. 
Hunting implements are bows and arrows. The bowstrings are made 
of vegetable fibre, and the bows are long and well made. The same 
is true of the arrows. The shaft is of cane, with an insertion of 
wood and a point of bone or of a sharpened piece of bamboo, or a 
ray of spikes. All over the western parts for smaller game they 
use the blowing-tube, into which they insert poisoned arrows from 
their quiver. The spear-thrower is only used on the Upper Ama- 
zon among the Yivaro, Cocama, Tekuna, and Conibo. Poisoned 
arrows are universally used with the blowing-tube. The poison is 
the extremely effective urari, or curare, obtained from the bark of 
the Strychnos toxifera, one of the creeping plants of the Strychnos 
species. None of the Indians of the forest area use lines for fishing, 
but bows and arrows, fish-spears, fish-nets, pots and traps of various 
kinds. Avery common method is to dam back the water at suitable 
places and to poison the water with the leaves and branches of the 
timbo-liane. 


248 


fra EOP WE Sy Oia Ere Reid 


In keeping with their comparatively settled life, these Indians 
expend some care on the construction of their houses. In some 
cases, é.g., in the Uaupes region, the entire village consists of one 
large sib-house. It is, therefore, very large, and may contain as 
many as a hundred persons. Most of the tribes lay out their village 
in such a way that two or three houses stand round a village square. 
There is also usually a separate men’s house, which is used as a 
meeting-place for festivities. The only exception is the Caraya, 
who build their villages in lines of from twenty to thirty houses. 
The houses are either circular or square or intermediate between 
these two. The framework, and, where they exist, the side walls, 
consist of plain, wooden posts, and the roof, which comes down to 
the ground, is covered with palm-leaves or reeds. All along the 
north coast, and especially around Lake Maracaibo, the conditions 
necessitate ‘lake-dwellings.’ Except among the western tribes, 
close to the Andes, the house furniture includes the hammock. It 
is a characteristic article among tillage tribes as opposed to tribes 
who do not till the soil. It is usually made of corded palm-fibres 
or of cotton-threads or of both together, and is manufactured on 
the principle of the ‘double-thread’ wickerwork. In Guiana it is 
sometimes woven, or made of running loops. Carved stools of wood 
are used by chiefs and by medicine men. In the evenings the in- 
terior of the house is lit up by wood fires, over which are various 
wooden erections for toasting the food. A host of domestic animals 
contribute their share to the animated life that prevails in the 
houses. 

In spite of their fairly advanced civilization, the clothing of these 
forest Indians is very scanty. Still, the women usually wear some 
covering, however small, and the men have always some sort of 
arrangement which at least serves to conceal erection. Among the 
tribes on the Upper Xingu and among the Paressi this arrangement 
consists of a string tied somewhat tightly round the body, so that 
the penis is caught up and held by the foreskin in between the string 
and the body. Other tribes, including most of those on the Rio 
Negro, wear an apron that passes between the legs and hangs down 
in front. Others again, like the Yuruna and Munduruku, wear a 
penis-holder like that used by the Ges. Many of the women dress 
very scantily. Those on the Upper Xingu wear a small triangle of 
bast, about 3 cm. long, which lies close to the body and compresses 
the vagina. The Paressi women wear a waist-cloth that encircles 


249 


THE PRIMITIVE: RA CHS: @ BaaVicAaN er Ne 


the body and the hips, and other tribes wear the apron of palm- 
leaves. More adequate clothing is found only among the Ucayali 
tribes, like the Conibo, Piro, and Campa. These wear sleeveless 
shirts, blankets, and ponchos, garments which are probably imitated 
from those of the Andean tribes. The ornaments of the forest 
Indians are numerous and varied. They wear ear-shells; and the 
underlip, the septum of the nose, and the corners of the mouth are 
pierced to facilitate the wearing of wooden disks, feathers, pegs, and 
small cylinders of wood or even of stone. The under-lip pegs are 
often of considerable size. The Miranha and Mayoruna used to 
expand their nostrils with large disks of shell. Many tribes tattoo 
themselves, and indicate in this way the tribe to which they belong 
(e.g., Apiaca), while the Munduruku cover large portions of their 
bodies with artistic markings. Many of them paint the body with 
the beautiful uruku red or the blue-black of the jenipapo fruit, and 
the painting is often splendidly done in the usual geometric patterns. 
Feathers are the chief ornaments at festivities, and striking ex- 
amples can be seen among the Caraya on the Araguaya, the Rucu- © 
yenne and Macusi in Guiana, and among the Rio Negro tribes. 
There are also all kinds of necklets and breast chains, bracelets, and 
leglets of stone, shell, seeds, teeth, claws, and beetles’ wings. Many 
Carib tribes wear cotton bandages on the upper arm and below the 
knee, so tightly tied as to cut into the muscles. The Umana wear 
broad bandages of tree bark round the body up to the armpits. 

Owing to the lack of metals, they are, of course, reduced to 
primitive tools of stone, shell, bone, animal teeth and claws, and 
wood. The sharp teeth of the piranha fish do duty for knife and 
scissors ; those of rodent animals are made into chisels; sharp fish 
teeth are made into awls ; shells are shaped into scrapers and planes ; 
and on the Upper Xingu the large claws of the armadillo are made 
into picks. Most tribes make good pottery and wickerwork, and 
the Arawaks are exceptionally clever in these arts. Most of the 
things thus made are used in the preparation of food from the 
tubers of the manioc. Long wicker tubes and filters are used in 
extracting the poisonous sap of the same plant, and finely plaited 
shallow bowls and colanders are employed to sift the flour produced 
fromit. The cakes of manioc flour are toasted on shallow earthen- 
ware dishes, and the sap of the tuber is boiled in large earthen pots. 
The poisonous matter is thus evaporated, and a popular beverage is 
produced. The manioc porridge is thoroughly masticated by the 
250 


rs PROPGES OF VRE E BAR LEH 


women and put into similar pots, where it ferments and yields a 
more or less potent intoxicating liquor, cashiri or tshitsha, which is 
drunk in great quantities at the festivities. All these Indians make 
free use of tobacco, and it is an indispensable part of the medicine 
man’s outfit. It is either smoked in the form of cigars, or in wooden 
pipes, or it is used as snuff. The snuff-spoon is tube-shaped. Cocca 
also is widely used by the western tribes. 

Only a few of these tribes use the loom with mechanical heddle. 
Originally it seems to have been used only by the Pano and Arawak 
tribes, and the perpendicular or vertical loom seems to have been 
almost indigenousthere. The western tribes, in the Rio Negro area, 
in Bolivia, and in eastern Peru are clever in working up bark into 
armlets and leglets, dancers’ masks, etc. 

The artistic gifts of the tropical forest Indians find expression 
chiefly in the frequent ornamentation of all kinds of articles, as well 
as in the tattooing and painting of their skins. The best specimens 
are geometrical patterns. Figure-drawing is rarely found, even in 
their plastic work, although some approach to it is found in the 
earthenware vessels of the Xingu tribes. On the other hand, geo- 
metrical designs, rhombs, and wavy patterns are found on earthen- 
ware vessels, masks, wooden stools, and graters. 

With regard to their social organization, the prominent place 
occupied by tillage in their economic life brings the territorial 
principle well to the front. By far the most important economic 
unit is the village community, and this may either be the supreme 
community over others, or, where the village consists of only one 
large sib-house, a house community. Where the latter is not the 
case, the house community plays an important economic part along 
with the village community. The sib-house community, which 
rests on a basis combining the principles of blood-kinship and terri- 
toriality, is usually composed of several monogamic families. In 
the village community the chief authority is usually in the hands 
of one village-head, but sometimes there are more than one. This 
village-head is one of the house-heads. In some cases several 
village communities have combined politically under the authority 
of a supreme chief. Some accounts say that the Paressi Indians 
were once organized as one large state. In other districts, just as 
in North America, there are actual confederations of states, eg, 
the Manaos Confederation on the middle reaches of the Amazon, 

Owing to the prevalence of the territorial principle in the social 

251 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


organization, totemism is not prominent. It has been found only 
among the Guiana tribes, where numerous sibs bear the names of 
animals and plants. The principles of mother-right are strictly 
followed, especially in the position which the husband occupies in 
respect to his father-in-law, and they are also prominently seen in 
the important position held by the mother’s brother. The peculiar 
custom of couvade, ‘the husband brought to bed,’ is found among 
various tribes, and in a very coarse form on the Upper Xingu. The 
puberty rites for boys frequently include tests of physical endurance. _ 
These assume grotesque forms among the Carib tribes of Guiana. 
The boys are exposed to the painful bites of ants and the stings of 
wasps, the insects being imprisoned in the meshes of wicker cases 
tied on the backs of the boys. Among some tribes the boys are 
whipped till the blood comes. | 

Intercourse between the various economic communities 1s fairly 
close, and, of course, hostile encounters are frequent. In addition 
to bows and arrows, several tribes use the spear-thrower, and it was 
evidently in more frequent use formerly than it is now. For hand- 
to-hand combat they have long thrust lances, all kinds of wooden 
clubs, and dagger-like knives of bamboo. Defensive armour is 
rarer. Shields are used only by the Yuri and Yivaro, some Pano 
tribes, and in earlier times by the Baure and the Moxo. Village 
fortifications are also rare. Several tribes keep their enemies’ heads 
as trophies. The Munduruku preserve the skulls of the enemies they 
have slain, and the Yivaro have the quaint custom of removing the 
bone part of the heads and toasting the soft parts till they contract 
into small bulk. Cannibalism is practised in several districts, 
among the Cashibo, Miranha, and Apiaca. Among the Apiaca the 
captured brave is well treated for a time and is even provided with 
a wife from the tribe, but one day he is knocked on the head with 
a club and eaten. 

Knotted strings are used in Guiana, and signal drums are made 
by hollowing out tree-stems. A kind of ‘drum-language’ has been 
evolved and is used to convey messages. 

Barter of commodities is carried out by some tribes who under- 
take extensive expeditions for this purpose through adjacent areas, 
and almost every tribe has its own speciality of manufacture. 
But, as the economic life is largely communal, external economic 
intercourse is, on the whole, restricted within narrow limits, and on 
the Upper Xingu it is confined to hostile intercourse. The expedi- 
252 


Hee PROP RS TOP MEE Ry RATE 


tions just mentioned travel by water. The smaller streams are 
navigated in boats of bark, and the larger rivers in dug-outs. In 
addition to these, the eastern Tupi on the east coast of Brazil used 
large rafts of strong beams—the precursors of the present-day 
Brazilian jangada—and with these they carried on considerable 
traffic. 

These tropical forest Indians also possess a kind of pictorial 
writing. The Paressi Indians still cover their large palisades with 
all kinds of figures, which express definite ideas, and at certain 
festivals young people eagerly try their hand at this kind of 
self-expression. This is undoubtedly the meaning of the ‘rock- 
drawings’ which are found all over the forest area, and which were 
done by the ancestors of the Indians of to-day. Religious life 
seldom reveals more than a primitive belief in magic and a pri- 
mitive animism. Nature is everywhere conceived to be animated 
by demons, to appease whom is one of the chief functions of the 
magician, or medicine-man, who is an important personage in almost 
every tribe. He has also to heal the sick by freeing the patient 
from the evil demons who have attacked him. Masked dances, 
which are in great part mimic imitations of animals, are common 
among numerous tribes all through the Rio Negro area, on the 
middle Amazon (among the Yahua, Pehua, and Tekuna), and on 
the Upper Xingu. A secret society or federation exists among the 
Arawak tribes on the Ica and farther north on the Orinoco. It 
comes into action when the palm fruit ripens, and seeks to promote 
good crops by the blowing of large wooden flutes. 

The spirits of the dead are greatly feared, and numerous means 
are employed to prevent their return. The treatment of the dying 
and the burial customs are dictated by these fears. Among the 
Uaupes tribes, the Munduruku, and Yuruna the dead are buried in 
the house ; among the Puru tribes and the Caraya a special hut is 
built over the grave. The wild maquarri dance of the Arawaks in 
British Guiana, in which the dancers whip each other till the blood 
comes, is meant to appease the vengeance of the dead person. The 
Tupi tribes—the Tshiriguano on the eastern slopes of the Cordilleras 
and the Guarani—bury the dead in large urns. The Bororo method 
of ‘after-burial’ is also practised. The eating of the dead tribes- 
man, which was common among the Pano tribes (Mayoruna and 
Cashibo), has survived in a modified form among the Uaupes tribes. 
At the death feast the bones are burned and reduced to powder and 

253 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


drunk in the liquor cashiri. Only very rarely, among the Rucuyenne 
in Guiana, for example, is the corpse cremated. 

3. The Ancient Inhabitants of the Antilles and Bahamas. We 
have already had occasion, when speaking of the Arawak and Carib 
linguistic families, to mention the original inhabitants of the Cen- 
tral American Archipelago. We saw that the population of these 
islands consisted mainly of Arawak tribes, who were usually called 
Taino in the Greater Antilles, and Cibuni in Cuba and the Bahamas. 
In the Lesser Antilles the Arawaks, who at the time of the European 
invasion had been largely ousted by Caribs from the mainland, were 
called Allouages, and the few Arawak tribes who had remained 
in the mountains bore the distinguishing name of Inyeri. The 
European invasion and the ruthless exploitation due to the system 
of vepartimientos had such a disastrous effect on the native island 
population that, by the middle of the sixteenth century, there was 
no indigenous population left on the Greater Antilles. The insular 
Caribs managed to hold out a little longer—till the seventeenth 
century. The few survivors, with a strong infusion of negro blood, 
were later transplanted to British Honduras, 

Both linguistically and culturally these tribes are akin to the 
tilling tribes of tropical South America. ‘Tillage, in the form of 
forest-clearing, was the economic basis of their life, but whereas 
fishing was an important activity, hunting, probably because of the 
absence of large quadrupeds, played a very subordinate part. We 
are told that they hunted ducks by swimming up to them concealed 
by hollow pumpkin-skins, and that they caught the larger fish 
and turtles by means of a small suctorial fish which was tied to a 
cord and set among them. 

The inhabitants of the Antilles i outstripped their linguistic kin 
on the mainland in stonework and wood-carving. They also knew 
the rudiments of metalworking. This was probably due to the 
influence of Central American civilization, and to the brisk exchange 
of commodities which they carried on with that part of the main- 
land. It is said that a busy trade was carried on between Jamaica 
and Yucatan. 

Socially, the inhabitants of the Antilles differed from their tribal 
kinsmen by the extraordinary development of chieftainship among 
them. The ceremonial connected with this feature of their social 
life almost recalls the conditions in Polynesia. It has led to the rise 
of a kind of feudal nobility. 


254 


(UP PL OPTS @ Hes bE bob AR EH 


They had large seaworthy dug-outs. Some of these were very 
large, perhaps the largest vessels in all South America. The only 
weapons of the Arawaks on the islands were spears and spear- 
throwers, while the Caribs used bows and poisoned arrows, and 
heavy clubs for hand-to-hand combat. 

Ancestor-worship was one of the most prominent features of their 
religion. Ancestral figures were made of stone, clay, and even of 
gold; in Cuba and Haiti the skulls of the dead were carefully 
dressed and preserved. 

4. The Civilized Peoples of the Andean Area. Here we have to 
distinguish two chief zones, largely independent of each other—the 
Columbian and the Peruvian. 

Geographically, the Columbian zone of civilization is almost 
entirely confined to the high ground and the great river valleys of 
the Magdalena and the Cauca. The whole coast area and the lower 
districts round Lake Maracaibo were inhabited by a large number 
of linguistically separate peoples, who were, speaking generally, 
on a par in civilization with the tillage tribes of the tropical forest 
area. Some of them, like the Caribs of the Motilones, are connected 
linguistically with one of the large families ; some of them form 
independent linguistic groups. 

The Columbian zone comprises a western and an eastern group of 
civilizations. 

The tribes belonging to the west group occupied the Middle 
and Upper Cauca Valley. The former Indian population of this 
district, who have long since been lost in the mixed population, 
consisted of a number of tribes speaking different languages, 
who grew maize, made fine cotton textiles, washed gold in the 
numerous gold-diggings, and worked up the metal with great skill 
into brooches and ear and nose ornaments. The Quimbaya were 
famous goldsmiths. They lived in the neighbourhood of the 
modern Cartago, and must have possessed an enormous amount 
of gold treasure. 

The villages were surrounded by palisades, and the houses were 
built of cane and palm-leaves, Only the tribes in the Upper 
Cauca Valley had houses containing several families. Each village 
had its square devoted to festivals and discussions, surrounded by 
posts on which hung the heads of enemies that had been killed and 
eaten. The tribes were headed by chiefs, who kept great state, 
ruled despotically, and lived in constant feud with each other. 


255 


THE PRIMITIVE RACESVORRNUAN KIDNAD 


They had no bows and arrows, and their only weapons were spear- 
throwers, lances, and clubs. 

The dead were buried with all their belongings, with numerous 
earthenware vessels and valuable gold treasures, either under 
grave mounds or in deep pits that branched off into vaults or 
galleries. 

Closely connected with this west group were the ancient Cueva 
or Coiba. They inhabited the district of Panama up to Rio 
Chagres, and seem to have had many features in common with 
the Nicaraguan tribes and the Chibcha, and a language like that 
of the Chibcha. 

The eastern group also comprised a large number of tribes 
inhabiting the plateaux, the deep wooded river-valleys, and the 
slopes down to the llanos of the Orinoco. In this case, however, a 
nation had gained the hegemony and founded a great empire. This 
was the Chibcha nation, often called Muysca by Spanish writers. 
The centre of their dominion was the plateau of Bogota. When the 
Spaniards came in 1538 they found two dynasties at feud with 
each other. In the south, in Muiquita, the modern Funza, resided 
the Zipa, the secular king, and a priest-king, the Kazike of 
Guatavita, the famous sacred lake on the east Cordillera. In the 
north, on the other hand, in Hunsa, the modern Tunja, ruled another 
dynasty, the Zaqué, who claimed to be older. The northern ruler 
had also along with him a priest-king, who lived in Suamoz, the 
modern Sogamoso. 

From this plateau civilization radiated in all directions. Related 
in language to the Chibcha were the ancient Arhuacos in Sierra 
Nevada de Santa Marta. Their descendants are the present 
inhabitants of these districts, the Kéggaba. 

Agriculture was the central feature of the economic life both of 
the Chibcha and their neighbours of the east group. They raised 
potatoes, maize, sweet potatoes, quinoa, and, in the hot valleys, 
manioc and cotton. Gold was found in the rivers and made into 
jewellery. Weaving was carried on, and the cotton cloth thus pro- 
duced furnished the clothing of both sexes. Men and women wore 
two garments, one round the loins and one round the shoulders. 
The villages were enclosed within palisades, and the round huts of 
bamboo and straw were irregularly dotted about the enclosure. 
The huts were, it is said, furnished with fine mats, and the door- 
ways were covered with gold leaf. These tribes used no bows and 


256 


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arrows. Their sole weapons were spear-throwers, lances, clubs, and 
slings for throwing stones. 

Despotism was even more pronounced among the Chibcha chiefs 
than among those of the western group. No one dared to look at 
the princes, and every one who approached a prince brought presents 
and turned his eyes away. It was the chief’s exclusive privilege 
to be carried in a litter, and he alone was entitled to pronounce 
judgment. Barter was briskly carried on with the adjacent tribes. 
The Chibcha arranged distant trading expeditions, and salt, gold, 
and woven stuffs were freely exchanged for the products of hot 
districts. Chibcha traders went as far as Santa Marta in the north 
and Quito in the south, and it was their tales that tempted their 
listeners to come and conquer their country. 

There are many resemblances between the religious ideas of 
the Chibcha and those of the ancient Mexicans. The worship of 
the sun was accompanied by human sacrifices. The blood of the 
victims was believed to be devoured by the sun. Ona mountain- 
top they decapitated a boy with a bamboo knife and smeared the 
blood on stones which caught the sun’s earliest beams. Or, again, 
a boy of fifteen who had been carefully educated in the priests’ 
seminary was placed on a special altar and killed with spear-thrusts. 
Human sacrifices also attended the erection of the palisade posts, 
each post being rammed home over a child’s dead body. The dead 
bodies of the Kazikes (the priest-kings) and their wives and servants 
were mummified by the removal of the intestines and the insertion 
of resin, and were then buried in grave vaults. 

The chief places of worship were the sacred lagoons. There were 
several of these on the plateau. That of Guatavita is the most 
famous, and many legends are connected with it. It was here that 
worship was conducted by the priest-king. His whole body was 
powdered with gold-dust before he bathed in the sacred waters of 
the lagoon. Small figures of gold were thrown into the waters 
while worship was performed. Many creation myths were current, 
one of the most popular being that of Bachue, the great mother of 
the gods. From the waters of the lake she arose, bringing with her 
a boy. When he had grown to man’s estate she became his wife, 
and brought forth human beings. Then, changing herself into a 
serpent, she disappeared with the father of her children into the 
lake from which she came. 

In contrast to these Columbian and Central American civilizations 


R 257 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


the ancient Peruvian Empire presents the picture—at the time of 
the discoveries—of a large unified political state. Round the peri- 
phery of that gigantic empire there were indeed a few peoples 
politically separate from it, but their civilization was so coloured 
by that of Peru that it need not be specially treated. These 
boundary tribes included the Coconuco and the Paez in the Central 
Cordilleras, the ancient tribes on the coast of Ecuador, e.g., the 
Cayapo, Esmeraldas, and Colorado, who once possessed a fairly 
high civilization, and the now extinct Diaguita or Calchaqui, who 
used to inhabit the ‘Calchaquita valleys’ on the east slope of the 
Andes in North Argentine. These Calchaqui had their settle- 
ments on plateaux difficult of access. In some respects they had 
a civilization of their own, but in many eae it revealed the 
influence of Peru. 

The remnants of an uncultured fishing people are found in the 
ancient Peruvian area—the Uru on Lake Titicaca and the streams 
that enter it, and the inhabitants of the arid portions of Atacama 
(the Lican-antai and Chango). 

At a time not long before the Spanish invasion the ancient 
Peruvian Empire had grown to such a gigantic size that no neigh- 
bouring state could compete with it in political power. The fifteenth 
century was half finished before the Inca Tupac Yupanqui, the 
grandfather of the hapless Atahualpa, had pushed his conquests in 
the south to the Rio Maule in Chile, and it was his son Huayna 
Capac who advanced north beyond the Equator and annexed the 
mighty empire of Quito. The subjugated populations were sys- 
tematically incorporated with the great empire. The language of 
the conquerors, Khechua, was made the official language, and sun- 
worship was made the statereligion. As time went on the civiliza- 
tion of the whole empire became more and more uniform. All the 
same, even in the time of the later Inca dominion, there were various 
groups corresponding generally to the formerly independent popula- 
tions. These groups, however, do not correspond to the linguistic 
differences that existed within the empire. The reason is that the 
Khechua tribe of the Incas at an early stage chose as their capital 
Cuzco, which was situated in the region where the language was 
Colyan or Aymaran. These Colya-Aymara had their centre on 
the Titicaca Lake, where can still be seen the ruins of Tiahuanacu, 
with their famous stone figures and the great monolith gate adorned 
with reliefs, the temple buildings on the islands of Titicaca and Coati, 
258 


(ettitel OP CR StOhe GE Bak AR IGE 


and the circular grave towers (challpas) on the peninsula of Sillustani. 
These all date from a time anterior to the Inca dominion, and reveal 
in all probability a civilization that belonged to the ancestors of the 
Colya-speaking Indians. In any case, the systematic explorations 
of Uhle have shown that this Aymara civilization, if we may so call 
it, extended in former times much farther northward, and as far 
asthe coast. In the older strata of the ruins of Pachacamac various 
articles have been dug up which resemble those found in the Aymaran 
territory. <A specially beautiful textile material in the Berlin 
collection, with figures that are clearly in Tiahuanacan style, proves 
that these Aymaran influences must have penetrated even as far as 
the Andes. 

We have just said that the chief seat of the Aymara population 
was in the south-east part of ancient Peru; but the original seats 
of the Khechua tribes were farther north. Indians speaking a 
dialect of Khechua were settled near Quito and also on the coast 
of Ecuador. 

The coast inhabitants, whose culture differed in many respects 
from that of the Khechua and Aymara, were composed of highland 
Indians. They were all called Yunca, but they belonged originally 
to a large number of different linguistic groups. On the northern 
part of the coast were the Chimu, or Mochica, who, till their territory 
was conquered by the Incas, had been a large, independent state, 
and have left magnificent indications of their advanced civilization 
in the ruined sites at Trujillo, Chimbote, Ancon, Chancay, Lima, 
and Pachacamac. Farther-south, in the valleys of Chincha, Ica, 
and Nasca, were other tribes, speaking different languages, whose 
civilization also differed in many ways from that of the coast tribes 
to the north of them. 

At the time of the Inca dominion the material civilization of the 
ancient Peruvians was based on a highly developed agriculture, of 
the type called irrigation, or terrace-culture. The gigantic terrace 
masonry, partly in the valleys and partly on the mountain slopes, 
and the irrigation works connected with the terraces are among 
the most amazing productions of ancient Peruvian skill. Another 
method of producing agricultural land was practised both on the 
north coast and by the Indians in the I¢a valley. The barren 
layers of sand were carried away till moist, fertile soil was reached. 
The chief crops were maize, quinoa (a species of malve), which is 
still grown, potatoes (which came from Peru), a species of wood- 


259 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


sorrel, oca, beans, and pignuts. In the hot valleys they raised also 
manioc, tobacco, cocco, numerous fruit-trees, and cotton. Their 
implements were large, wooden spades. A special kind of spade, 
still used by the Aymara of the uplands, has two cross sticks on the 
handle, one to receive the pressure of the hand and one to receive 
the pressure of the foot. On the coast they also used copper 
spades with wooden handles. The use of manure was understood. 
The coast tribes used guano, which was brought from the islands ; 
in other districts they used human excrement in powdered form, 
llama dung, and fish refuse. 

In contrast to all other American peoples, the Peruvians raised 
cattle, especially the two species of Auchenta, the llama and the 
alpaca. They were bred both for their meat and for their wool, 
and they were also used as beasts of burden. Guinea-pigs, dogs, 
and various kinds of ducks were also bred. 

Large game, like guanaco, vicufia, and stags, were hunted by 
means of battues. The hunting regulations, which were strictly 
enforced, required that the stock of game should not be reduced too 
far. The guanacos and the vicufias were frequently taken alive, 
shorn of their valuable wool, and again liberated. Bows and arrows 
were not used; the weapons were such as could be hurled by the 
spear-thrower, and clubs and slings. The bola was also used, and 
the blowing-tube for killing birds. 

Fishing was diligently pursued both on the coast and on inland 
lakes. Nets, large drag-nets extended between two rafts, harpoons, 
and fish-poisons were used, and, although the tropical forest Indians 
never used lines, the Peruvians were skilful fishers with lines. 

The houses of the common people were usually of one story with 
a projecting straw roof. They had one large apartment on one side 
and several small separate rooms on the other. On the coast the 
walls were of adobe or of cane; on the uplands they were of stone, 
very rarely of wood. The houses of the officials were spacious and 
had pillars and porticoes. The Inca palaces were of two or two and 
a half stories. They were thatched with straw, and were built 
round a courtyard, on which all the doorways opened. 

The clothing of the ancient Peruvians consisted, for the men, of 
a loin-cloth and ‘poncho,’ a sleeveless shirt; for the women, of a 
large blanket that covered the whole body, fastened at the waist by 
two girdles and at the shoulder by a metal pin with a large round 
head, the‘topu.’ Both sexes also wore large capes, sandals or shoes 
260 


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of leather or wickerwork, and a headdress in the form of a fillet 
or buttoned cap. 

The aristocracy had the custom of altering the shape of the skull. 
The Aymara preferred an elongated, turban-shaped head, while 
the coast-dwellers preferred a flattened forehead. Tattooing and 
painting of the body were almost universal. They are seen on the 
mummies. All sorts of necklets, finger rings, and large, beautifully 
chased ear-pegs were worn. 

We can form a fairly clear idea of the Peruvian industries, 
because a large number of their productions, even of the earlier 
period, have been preserved. This is due to the conjunction of two 
fortunate circumstances. First, it was the custom to bury witha 
dead person many of the articles he had been in the habit of using, 
and, second, these articles, even those made of perishable material, 
have been splendidly preserved in the dry, nitrous soil. It would 
take too long to enter upon a detailed description of the manufac- 
ture and style of these articles. Suffice it to say that both stone- 
work and woodwork had attained a high degree of perfection, while 
in metalwork the Peruvians were the most advanced of all American 
peoples. They had discovered the process of smelting metal from 
the ore, using conical furnaces, and of making the alloy of copper 
and tin that we call bronze. Wickerwork and weaving, even 
weaving with the mechanical heddle, were well developed, and the 
numerous fine patterns in their textile-work, as well as the painted 
and plastic ornamentation on their earthenware, give evidence of 
their great artistic skill. 

Writers on political economy, especially those on the Socialistic 
side, have long been wont to point to the economic conditions in 
ancient Peru as a classical example of communal production. It 
is a typical feature of such a one-sided development of communal 
production that in the ancient Inca Empire it coexisted with a very 
pronounced despotism, without which the gigantic buildings and 
irrigation works in Peru would have been impossible. In the Inca 
Empire there were several economic communities, each subordinated 
to another, and all under the control of one supreme economic 
authority. The lowest of these was the family, in the narrower 
sense, 7.¢., the married man with his wife and his unmarried children; 
for, until they were married, the sons continued in the economic 
community of their parents. The next was the village community, 
comprising a number of related families, controlled by the lacta- 

261 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


mayoc, the village-head. Next above the village communities, and 
sometimes identical with them, was the ayllu. This was a number 
of families descended from one common ancestor, 7.e., it was an 
economic community on the basis of blood-relationship. At the 
time of the later Incas, at least, this ayllu seems to have been 
identical with the ‘century,’ the pachaca, containing on the average 
a hundred able-bodied men of from twenty-five to fifty years of age. 
_ At the head of the ayllu was a sort of chief, the ayllucamayoc, or 
pachaccuraca, or, briefly, curaca, who controlled all the llactamayoc 
in his district. The two next higher communities were less import- 
ant from the economic point of view. They were the upper ayllus, 
the hanansaya, and the lower ayllus, the hurinsaya—units which the 
old Spanish sources call parcialidades. Next above these were the 
communities corresponding to the later repartimientos or provincias, 
each consisting of two parcialidades. ‘These seem to have been the 
supreme economic communities in the days before the consolidation 
of the Peruvian State. 

For administrative purposes from three to five of these last- 
mentioned repartimientos were under the control of the tucricucs, 
officials sent from the capital, Cuzco, and the districts under these 
officials were grouped according to their geographical position in 
one of the four imperial provinces. These were Colla-Suyu, Anti- 
Suyu, Conde-Suyu, and Chinchu-Suyu, each being administered by 
a capac or capac-apa, who resided in Cuzco. The supreme economic 
community was the Inca State as such, and the supreme head of it 
was the head of the first Inca tribe, the capac-ayllu. Although the 
Inca had as colleague the hwuillcauma, an influential religious 
official, all secular power was in his own hands, and the divine 
honours paid to him as Son of the Sun, strengthened his despotic 
power. The various ayllus usually had definite districts assigned 
to them for long periods, but it lay with the Inca to decree changes 
in these districts, to unite several of them into one, or to settle 
people from other districts upon them. More than once it happened 
that insubordinate sections of the people were extirpated altogether 
or transplanted to distant parts of the empire. 

The distribution of labour within the empire was controlled by 
the central government. The labour was of two kinds—that which 
was employed within the labourer’s own narrow community and 
that which was permanently or temporarily employed elsewhere in 
the service of the State. This latter labour included all able-bodied 
262 


OER? ROP ion © be LEH by A Ree Et 


men between twenty-five and fifty years of age. The men in these 
classes were taken by the central government as required for military 
service, and for the erection of public buildings or for work in the 
mines. The men thus taken were from time to time relieved by 
other members of their ayllu, so that there were always some able- 
bodied men available for ayllu purposes. Youths were taken from 
all over the empire for the personal service of the Inca and his 
officials, and for subordinate administrative work. These youths— 
yanacuna, as they were called—definitely left their ayllu when they 
entered upon this employment, and were supported all their lives 
by the central government. Similarly, young girls from eight to 
twelve years of age were selected from their ayllus by the tucricuc 
or his subordinates, and educated in special institutions, called 
acllahuasi, These girls were called acllacuna, and from among 
them were chosen the numerous concubines of the Inca. Others 
became the wives or concubines of the yanacuna or other officials, 
and still others were employed in making certain of the commodities 
required in the worship. 

The labour power at the disposal of the separate ayllus was of 
three kinds: that which was needed for the support of individual 
families, that which was employed in the production of the raw 
materials required by the central government, and that which was in 
the service of the priesthood and of religion. In keeping with this 
threefold division of available labour, the ayllu lands were also 
divided into three parts. One part of each village territory was 
divided every year into lots, called topu, and distributed among the 
families in proportion to the number of persons they contained. 
The other two parts were called ‘tribute lands,’ one part being for 
the Inca and the other for the priests. The tilling of these various 
kinds of territory was undertaken by the members of the ayllus in 
a fixed order. Asimilar tripartite division existed in connexion with 
the live stock—individual members of the ayllus had each from 
three to five llamas apportioned to them, the rest, called capac- 
llamas, or noble llamas, were reared for the use of the secular central 
government or for that of the priests. 

The success that attended the transport arrangements must be 
reckoned among the most amazing achievements of the Inca State. 
Two great military roads traversed the whole land from north to 
south. One of these ran from Quito to Cuzco across the uplands, 
and was carried across ravines by masonry work that must have 


2.63 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


cost enormous labour, as long stretches of it were hewn out of the 
solid rock; the other followed the coast line, and was protected 
where necessary against drift sand by walls of masonry, and planted 
with shady trees. Numerous bridges, some being of stone and 
some being suspension bridges, facilitated land transport; and 
water transport on Lake Titicaca and on the coast was assisted by 
rush rafts, large wooden rafts, and rafts of animal hide, two large 
inflated animal skins being used as floats, On the main roads 
stood larger or smaller shelter houses, tambos, and a well-conceived © 
courier service carried news with great speed throughout the empire. 

The frontiers were guarded by strong fortresses. The entrance to 
the tropical lowlands of the River Ucayali was guarded by the huge 
rock fortress of Ollantay-tambo, and close to the capital stood the 
mighty fortress Sacsahuaman, connected with Cuzco by a subter- 
ranean passage, and meant to be the last refuge of the central 
government in case of need. The army was well organized, and the 
soldiers were armed with spherical or spiked maces of stone or metal. 
There were also bodies of stone-throwers, protected by padded 
doublets and shields, as well as men armed with lances and spear- 
throwers. The Peruvians of the later time did not use bows and 
arrows, but the earlier Aymara peoples used them. 

The pictorial writing of the Peruvians was not so advanced as 
that of the ancient Mexicans. It never attained the stage of repre- 
senting definite sounds by definite signs, but another means of com- 
munication was brought to great perfection among them. This was 
knotted strings, or guipu, used chiefly by administrative officials. 

The religious ideas of the Peruvians found expression in an ex- 
tensive animism, with a large admixture of fetishism. The sun, 
moon, and all striking natural phenomena were believed to possess 
souls. Stones and stone figures were worshipped as the guardian 
spirits of the various ayllus, and each ayllu had its own special 
fetish, which might be any conceivable object. Worship of the sun 
was universal, and was encouraged by the central government, the 
Inca himself being worshipped as Son of the Sun. Temples of the 
Sun were built all over the empire. A well-organized priesthood 
superintended the ceremonies, and it fell to them to perform all the 
necessary sacrifices. The victims were animals, chiefly llamas and 
guinea-pigs, but tshitsha, fruits, shells, and other valuables were 
offered. Human beings were sacrificed at the great celebration that 
took place at the accession of a new Inca. Children from all parts 


264 


eer EOPPE SOLS DEL (EARTH 


of the empire were strangled at the shrines of the various deities. 
The great festivals in Cuzco were agricultural celebrations, and were 
marked by public banquets and rejoicings. 

Special honours were paid to Inti, the sun-god, and Choke, the 
rain-god, and to two other creation deities. One of these latter was 
Pachacamac, whose chief place of worship was the great temple 
south of Lima. The other was Viracocha, who was worshipped in 
the north, and who was believed to have created the sun, the moon, 
and the first human beings. Divine honours were also paid to the 
mummies of the dead Incas. These retained their regal state, and 
were brought from the temples in festive attire, in order to be 
present in person at the feasts held in their honour. 


THE TRIBES OF THE SOUTH SEAS 


By the tribes of the South Seas we mean the inhabitants of 
Australia and the islands of the Pacific, so far as they do not belong 
to Asia on the west or to America on the east. Taken as a whole, 
this population is quite distinct from the Asiatic and American races, 
but it cannot be considered one uniform people. On the contrary, 
it consists of a number of entirely different elements, partly super- 
incumbent, partly side by side. In recent times several attempts 
have been made to disentangle the racialstrata. Grebner, starting 
from the theory of ‘culture zones,’ has endeavoured to follow up 
certain elements of civilization in their geographical distribution and 
in their connexion with adjacent areas, and to prove in this way 
the existence of what he calls complexes or waves of civilization. 
It seems to me that, useful as this method may be, it is hazardous 
to draw from such data far-reaching inferences regarding the origin, 
to say nothing of the migrations, of these civilization elements. 
The only results of research that can be called assured are these. 
In the interior of New Guinea, just as in Indonesia, India, and 
Africa, there is a dwarf element of extremely low civilization quite 
different from the other tribes. The Australian continent and some 
islands near the coast of it are inhabited by a population somatically 
and linguistically separate, and the Tasmanians stand by themselves 
as an inferior people. In Melanesia there are two elements in the 
population, the Papuans in the interior and on part of the coast of 
New Guinea and in parts of New Pomerania? (the Baining there 

1 Now New Britain. 


265 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


belong to the Papuans), and the Melanesians proper, who occupy 
parts of the coast of New Guinea, all the adjacent islands, and 
apparently all the Bismarck Archipelago. The Papuan languages 
stand by themselves, but recent researches show that the languages 
of Melanesia form one large family with the language of Malay and 
that of Polynesia. The Polynesians and the Micronesians seem, 
comparatively, to be newcomers to Oceania. It is still uncertain 
whether they are Malayans, who migrated straight from South Asia, 
or, as is usually supposed, from Indonesia. In any case, the Micro- 
nesians are a connecting link between Melanesians and Polynesians. 

I. The Australians. The isolated position of the Australians in 
human history is due to the early separation of Australia from the 
rest of the world. The lack of variety and of water in the country, 
and the consequent poverty in food plants and in game, presented 
the Australian with conditions which rendered any rapid progress 
in civilization impossible. From the point of view of civilization, 
therefore, the Australian is very low in the scale of the human race, 
and, besides, from the somatic point of view, he has retained many 
protomorphic features. 

The Australians are a little over medium size. Their skin, which 
to the touch has a velvety softness, is frequently described as black, 
but in reality it is chocolate brown. Their hair, especially among 
the southern tribes, grows luxuriantly. The arms and the larger 
part of the upper body are somewhat thickly covered with short, 
curly hair. The hair of the head is black and glossy, and usually 
reaches to the shoulder in wavy curls. The beard is usually 
luxuriant, and is curly rather than wavy. The average muscular 
development is fairly good, and the average individual is fairly 
strong, but most of them are strikingly lean. 

From the coming of the first Europeans at the end of the 
eighteenth century the native population, as a result of the ruthless 
treatment to which they were subjected and in consequence of 
European contagious diseases, soon began to diminish, and in the 
course of a hundred years they were reduced to one-fifth of their 
original number. 

The Australian is, of course, restricted to the vegetable and animal 
food that he can procure by gathering, hunting, and fishing. 
There is no agriculture—or, at most, only the most elementary 
efforts. Nor is there any stock-farming, and even the dingo, the 
constant companion of the Australian, is not bred, but caught 


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young and very carefully reared—so carefully that it is often actually 
suckled by the women. For vegetable food the Australian depends 
on wild fruits, mushrooms, and lichens, and the women dig up roots 
with their digging sticks. In addition to the animal food gained 
by hunting and fishing, they eat larve, beetles, ants, and worms. 
The chief occupation of the men is hunting the various species of 
marsupials. Except in a few parts of the extreme north-east, bows 
and arrows are unknown. The chief hunting weapon is the spear- 
thrower, but the throwing club is also used to kill the smaller birds. 
Various artifices are used to get within killing distance of the game. 
Some southern tribes cover themselves with mud, in order to prevent | 
the game from getting wind of them; others use hunting-screens 
made of branches with their leaves. When hunting aquatic birds 
they wade up to the neck into the water and cover their heads 
with reeds and flags. In shallow water fish are simply caught with 
the hands, or thrown ashore with flat trays or plates of wood or 
other suitable material. In deeper water-the fish are netted in 
drag-nets or place-nets, or snared in crawls. In some parts of 
South Australia rod-fishing is carried on, the rods being made of 
wood or bone. 

Pottery is unknown, and, owing to the lack of watertight vessels 
of any kind, food cannot be boiled. It is grilled or broiled in hot 
ashes or over the fire, or it is put into large pits along with hot 
stones and burning fuel. 

Houses are simple in construction, but the shape varies. Where 
natural caves exist these are turned into dwellings. When moving 
about from place to place the Australians use simple windbreakers, 
or screens of bark or branches. When they have temporarily 
settled they build primitive huts, which consist merely of a sloping 
roof reaching to the ground with the sides open, but some are half 
conical in shape like bee-skeps. 

As a rule, the Australian goes naked, but where the climate is 
changeable he wears a cloak of kangaroo-skin or opossum-skin, or of 
plaited matwork. The belt worn round the middle, made of human 
hair or strands of bark, is more for ornament than for clothing. 
Tattooing and painting of the body are universally practised, but 
tattooing is also a sign of mourning or an indication of age or rank. 
The hair is sometimes left in its natural condition, and sometimes 
smeared with ochre. Some tribes cut it short, or tear it out by 
the roots, while others fashion it into peculiar forms of cozffure with 


267 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


the aid of ornaments. Nose jewellery is worn—pegs, feathers, or 
chased bone—and necklets of hair, seeds, teeth, and so on. Some 
tribes deform their children’s noses in earliest infancy by flattening 
them to an even greater extent than they are naturally. 

The technical capacities of the Australians are very undeveloped. 
Like all the South Sea peoples, they are ignorant of metalwork, 
and, as has been already said, they have no pottery. They have 
two ways of making fire—by using the ordinary wooden fire-drill 
and by filling the cavity of a rotten tree-stem with dry grass and 
then drawing a wooden saw across a stick laid over the cavity. 
Their implements and tools are all of the most primitive kind— 
of stone, bone, shell, and wood, and their stone tools, rough-hewn 
and rarely polished, resemble those of the Paleolithic Age of Europe. 
The only wicker articles used are simple rush baskets and cloaks of 
matwork. 

Very few of them use boats of any kind. Here and there are 
found poorly made boats of bark, and it is only in New South Wales 
that they have even progressed to the extent of dug-outs. On the 
other hand, their weapons are very varied, and hostile encounters 
are frequent. Much of their fighting takes the form of the duel. 
Bows and arrows are used only in the extreme north-east, where the 
influence of New Guinea has been strongest. They have, however, 
all kinds of clubs, both for striking and throwing. The best-known 
throwing club is the boomerang. The Queenslanders used to have 
long wooden swords, studded at the edges with stone chips, The 
spear is mostly hurled with the help of the spear-thrower. A very 
narrow wooden shield is almost the only defensive armour, and 
is used to ward off both club-strokes and spears. ‘Message sticks,’ 
flat or circular slabs of wood marked with figures and signs, are 
used to send declarations of war from one tribe to another. Thus, 
even the Australians have their own type of pictorial writing, and 
in former times they made use also of knotted strings. They have 
also a very highly developed form of gesture language. 

Special attention has been paid to the social and family life of the 
Australians, because it was long believed to represent the primeval 
form of human social and family life. It is impossible to enter here 
upon a detailed discussion of Morgan’s theory of original group- 
marriage. Suffice it to say that totemism prevails in a very pro- 
nounced form among the Australians and cuts deep even into their 
economic life. The animal regarded by a tribe as its totem animal 


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and tribal ancestor must not be killed by any member of that tribe. 
The members of each totem are divided into age-classes, and thus 
there arises a somewhat complicated system of division of the whole 
population, which determines the regulations for marriage. These 
regulations decide to what group the girl who becomes the wife of a 
young man must belong, and marriages between members of the 
same group are forbidden. The dominating principle is that of 
mother-right, and the totem of the child and the place of residence 
of the family are both determined by the totem of the mother. 

The Australians have a remarkable gift for naturalistic drawing, 
which can only be compared with that of the Bushmen of South 
Africa, who, like the Australians, are at a very low level of 
civilization. 

Great importance is attached to the ceremonies that attend the 
initiation of the young men into the ranks of manhood. These are 
carried through by different tribes in different ways, but some 
features are common tothem all. The women are strictly excluded, 
and before being admitted the young men receive certain instruc- 
tions, including advice on sexual matters, and have to undergo 
tests of endurance. They are circumcised, and some of their teeth 
are knocked out. The bull-roarer, or whirring-stick, is used to warn 
women and children not to come near the place where these rites 
are being performed. ‘Corroboree’ dances are performed by the 
men, who are fantastically painted for the occasion, adorned with 
feathers, and disguised by masks. These dances are gentle rhythmic 
movements and mimic representations of the act of fecundation, 
and are supposed to influence the fertility of nature. Belief in 
magic and fear of the spirits of the departed are prevalent. [Illness 
and death are attributed to the influence of some evil magician. 
Protection against the spirits of the dead is found in a special fetish, 
tshuringa—an oval slab of wood or stone inscribed with all kinds of 
figures, and handed down from generation to generation. 

The burial of the dead is carried out by different tribes in different 
ways. Some bury the corpse immediately ; some place it in a 
tree ; some, again, practise ‘after-burial,’ others cremate the corpse 
or mummify it ; and there are some who eat it. 

2. The Tasmanians. At the time of its discovery the island of 
Tasmania, south of the mainland of Australia, was inhabited by a 
population of very low civilization, differing in many ways from 


the Australians, and related anthropologically to the Papuans of 
269 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


New Guinea. In 1804 the number of Tasmanians was estimated at 
8000 ; in 1876 the last representative of this people died. 

The economic life of the Tasmanians turned on fishing. Their 
chief food was fish and shellfish. Their huts and windscreens 
resembled those of the Australians, but they also lived in hollow 
trees. Both sexes went naked. Children were carried about in 
strips of hide, and similar strips, along with shells, bones, and teeth, 
were worn as ornaments. Sandals of hide were worn. MHatchets . 
and knives of hewn stone were the chief implements. Like the 
Australians, they were ignorant of pottery. They had primitive 
boats made of bark, stretched hide, or strong canes, and were punted 
about by means of spears. They had neither spear-thrower nor 
boomerang. They fought with the stone axes already mentioned, 
with long wooden lances, throwing sticks eighteen inches long, and 
wooden clubs. 

3. The Tribes of Melanesia. Melanesia, as the name implies, 
comprises that part of Oceania whose inhabitants are distinguished 
from those of the other South Sea islands by their specially black 
complexion. The largest and the most important part of this area 
is New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago (New Pomerania, 
New Mecklenburg,! the Admiralty Islands, andsome others). Then 
come, southward, the Solomon Islands, Santa Cruz, the New 
Hebrides, Loyalty Islands, and New Caledonia. The Fiji Islands 
to the east are also included in Melanesia, although there is a clear 
trace of Polynesian influence in the population there. 

As has been already mentioned, this dark-skinned, frizzy-haired 
population (apart from a few remnants of a dwarf race in New 
Guinea) includes two different elements: one with undersized 
bodies and broad, flat noses; the other, with thin, lean figures,. 
long, narrow heads, and curved noses. There has been much con- 
fusion between the names Papuan and Melanesian, and it is not easy 
to fix on definitive names for the two elements of the population 
now before us. Some ethnologists use the name Papuans for the 
inhabitants of New Guinea as a whole, in contradistinction to the 
inhabitants of the rest of Melanesia ; whereas Grebner goes further 
and distinguishes between a West Papuan and an East Papuan 
section, against the first of which he sets the Negritic, and against 
the second, the Melanesian civilization. In order not to increase 
the confusion, we shall not adopt Grebner’s nomenclature. We 


1 Now New Ireland. 
270 


FLUTE ORCHESTRA, BOUGAINVILLE ISLAND 


Melanesia 
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shall follow Weule, and use the name Papuans to mean the under- 
sized, flat-nosed population who are found, so far as the still incom- 
plete exploration of the islands enables us to say, in the interior of 
New Guinea and on some parts of the coast, and in New Pomerania 
(the Sulka and the Baining tribes) ; and we mean by Melanesians 
the rest of the populations of Melanesia. The Fiji Islands and the 
island groups south-east of the Solomon Islands contain a large 
admixture of Polynesians and of Polynesian civilization. 

Leaving out of account the primitive peoples in the interior of 
New Guinea, of whom little is known, the material civilization of 
most of Melanesia, both of Papuans and of Melanesians, is distin- 
guished by fairly good agriculture and by stock-breeding—chiefly 
pigs, dogs, and poultry. So far as is known, the typical agriculture 
in Melanesia is forest-clearing and jungle-clearing. This is the case 
in the New Hebrides, New Mecklenburg, and New Guinea. The 
usual process is followed. The forest is first cleared, with the aid 
of the polished stone axe and knife of shell. Iron axes were known 
in Melanesia even before the days of European immigration. After 
the trees have been felled the timber is burned, and the ground, 
fertilized by the ashes, is loosened with the pointed planting-stick 
at the places where the plants are to be inserted. The principal 
crops are taro, yams, and cocco. Bananas and the breadfruit-tree 
are rarer; indeed, the latter is not grown in New Guinea or in New 
Caledonia at all. The kava plant, the roots of which, after being 
chewed, produce the intoxicating kava liquor, occurs in Eastern 
Melanesia, especially in Fiji. The sago-palm has also reached 
Melanesia. It is the chief food of the bulk of the people of New 
Guinea, but there are some districts of that island where it is not 
grown at all. The areca-palm is raised all over the western part 
of New Guinea, and the areca-nut provides betel, the universal 
chewing material. Irrigation is also practised in Melanesia. Many 
of the Fijians grow the taro on dry ground, but the commonest 
method is to raise it in beds traversed by deep furrows and irrigated. 
The plantations are in many cases surrounded by fences for pro- 
tection against the wild pigs. | 

There is more hunting in Melanesia than in Polynesia, because 
land game is more abundant, especially in the west. Many tribes 
in New Guinea find the bulk of their food in this way. Wild pigs 
and a species of tree kangaroo are perhaps the chief kinds of game. 
Bows and arrows are used in many parts of the area, but in others— 

271 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


New Pomerania, New Mecklenburg, and some parts of New Guinea, 
for example—they are unknown. In New Guinea a kind of spear- 
thrower is used. Fishing is an even more important source of food. 
Large co-operative fishing expeditions are undertaken under the 
superintendence of outstanding men, and on many of the islands 
the fishing is carried on in shifts, one team relieving another. The 
more important chiefs on Fiji employ a considerable number of 
expert, professional fishermen. All methods of fishing are used— 
spears, darts, nets, and crawls. In some places there is some rod- 
fishing, and the Solomon Islanders use rods of tortoise-shell or 
mother-of-pearl. Vegetable poisons are also used to render the 
fish insensible, and special nooses are used to take sharks. In 
connexion with certain ceremonials and festivals, there are concerted 
battues of tortoises, the creatures being driven into large nets. 

Cannibalism prevails in many parts of Melanesia, in some more 
than in others. In the New Hebrides there is an actual trade in 
human flesh between the islands. It was specially common in the 
Fiji Islands, where human flesh was eaten with very long forks. 
The Fijians not only ate captives taken in war, but certain tribes 
were obliged to pay a yearly tribute of victims for the cannibal 
feasts. In other parts deceased relatives were eaten. 

Houses in Melanesia are of two quite different types—houses on 
the ground and pile-dwellings. The former are mostly of a very 
simple kind, with roofs reaching to the ground, while the latter, 
which are far more numerous not only on the coast but also in the 
interior, are often of considerable size. This is specially the case in 
Dutch New Guinea, where there are entire villages of pile-dwellings. 
A third type of house, frequent in New Guinea, is the tree-house, 
which is meant as a defence against attack. During the day the 
people live on the ground, and at night they ascend by rope-ladders 
to the tree-house. In Fiji the houses are of the type usually found 
in Polynesia. They are square structures of wood on a stone 
foundation. 

The skirtlets worn by the women are made of grass or fibre, and 
the men wear girdles of dyed bark. In both cases the garments 
are ornament rather than clothing, and there are some tribes that 
-go quite naked. The tapa clothing of the Fijians is not so scanty, 
but it is more Polynesian than Melanesian. The articles of jewellery 
worn round the chest, neck, arms, and legs are too numerous to be 
described here in detail. They are made chiefly of shells (Trzdacna 
272 


Ul|Jog ‘wihosny Teorsojouyyy oy} ur ydersozoyd ev uo ‘eIsoueypayy 
Abed SUAGNVIS] If a0 ASNOY 








$9 ALVI1d 


ul[iog ‘tinoesny [eorsofouy}y 9q} ur ydessojoyd & WoT, = ‘eIsoURTOT 
Le SHAINGAY] MAN AHL NI ASNOFT ~ 








99 ALV Id 


etek HOPI BS Ota RE Be ok AR TE 


gigas), tortoise-shell, and boars’ teeth. Body-painting is universal, 
and the entire body, including the hair, is smeared with a mixture 
of palm oil and ochre. Pegs and teeth are worn in the nose, and 
the ear-lobes are perforated and lengthened for earrings of tortoise- 
shell. The natives of Dutch New Guinea file their teeth to a point, 
and those of the New Hebrides and of New Pomerania deform their 
heads into high turban shape. Trepanation is practised in New 
Pomerania and New Mecklenburg. The skull is cut with a piece of 
shell to remove foreign matters that have entered through a wound, 
or to cure headache and insanity. The men of various tribes in 
New Guinea lace themselves tightly with a girdle of bark. 

There are frequent feuds between the tribes, and the Malayan 
practice of “head-hunting’ is common in New Guinea and among 
the Alfuri of Dutch New Guinea. They set out deliberately in order 
to bring home in triumph the heads of their slain enemies. The 
principal weapons are bows and arrows, but, as has been said, there 
are tribes in the south-east of New Guinea who do not use these. 
The spear-thrower is another common weapon. Wooden swords, 
lances, and maces are used occasionally in New Guinea, whereas 
the mace is the common weapon in the Bismarck Archipelago, in 
New Caledonia, and in Fiji. The maces of the New Pomeranians 
are spiked, and those of the New Caledonians and of the Fijians are 
exceptionally large and heavy. The spears of the natives of the 
Admiralty Islands are tipped with obsidian. They also use slings, 
the missiles being polished oval stones with pointed ends. Shields 
of various kinds are used, and are carried on the left shoulder or 
slung in a net round the neck, so as not to impede the use of the 
bow and arrow. 

The Melanesians excel the Australians and the Polynesians in 
pottery-work, and this, of course, implies a different way of cooking. 
Pottery-work, however, is not found among all the tribes, and, as 
some tribes excel in this art, there is an extensive barter in these 
wares. Even the Fijians, who in other respects have been greatly 
influenced by the Polynesians, have retained this art, and this seems 
to indicate that pottery is indigenous to Melanesia. The method 
of manufacture is very simple. The lump of clay is shaped with the 
help of a stone and a wooden beater, whereas in South America the 
article is constructed by coiling the clay in thin spirals. Clever 
work is done in wood-carving and in shellwork. The numerous 
wooden ancestral figures, the house-posts and boat-stems, the large 


S 273 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


wooden drums with their fine carving, and the incredible variety of 
wooden masks of the natives of New Mecklenburg are in their own 
way real works of art. Wickerwork in mats and baskets and the 
manufacture of articles from bark are also widely practised. The 
grotesque style which characterises all Melanesian work of this kind 
is greatly heightened by the dyestuff they use on nearly all their 
articles. Red, white, and black are the favourite colours. 

The chief means of transport of the Melanesians are boats, and 
these are of various kinds—rafts, dug-outs, and well-made out- 
rigger-boats, with a rectangular box of bamboo resting on the cross- 
poles and roofed with leaves as a protection against wind and sun. 
The large war-boats are beautifully carved and ornamented. There 
is brisk barter between the tribes, and with the Malayans in the 
west and with the Polynesians in the east. There is not only barter 
but trade. Tribes on the coast negotiate the exchange of Malay 
goods for the productions of the tribes of the interior, and various 
articles, especially shells, have assumed the character of money. 

The social organization of the Melanesians is extremely compli- 
cated, and our knowledge of it is still so incomplete that no detailed 
account of it can be given here. Socrety is organized on various 
principles, and these overlap in various ways. The territorial 
system is at the basis of the village community, but consanguinity 
also plays an important part. Several village communities com- 
bine to form a supreme economic community, and there are even 
examples of larger state organizations. In Fiji the area under one 
chieftain consisted of several villages, each of which was controlled 
by an underchief. Some of these villages had to serve in war, and 
others had to provide the chieftain and the fighting men with sus- 
tenance. The chieftain’s power varied in the different tribes. In 
some cases he was surrounded with a nimbus of divinity. In the 
. Solomons, for example, whoever came into the shadow of the chief 
must die. Among other tribes the chief is more of a primus inter 
pares, and he has colleagues in the elders of the tribe, whose in- 
fluence is far from negligible. All over Melanesia society includes a 
dominant free class and a subordinate class who are more or less 
slaves, and the women occupy a very dependent position. 

These social distinctions and the authority of the chief find strong 
support in the duk-duk system, which prevails in New Pomerania. 
It is half secret society and half state institution, and it controls life 
to a degree that amounts to tyranny. The members of this secret 


274 


io PEOPLES ORaLHE EARTH 


society are masked ; they collect fines and inflict punishments ; on 
occasion they can sentence to death or order a person’s house to 
be burnt. 

Side by side with this territorial organization there is another, 
based on consanguinity. This rests on totemism, and, being bound 
up with exogamy and mother-right, deeply affects family life. As 
members of certain groups must not intermarry, the circle of possible 
wives is limited. There are various forms of marriage—marriage 
by capture, or numerous modifications of it, and marriage by agree- 
ment, the girls being betrothed from birth and reared from their 
youth in the houses of their future husbands. Many men marry 
two wives and even more, but in other districts monogamy is 
general. There are examples of polyandry in the New Hebrides— 
two widowers marry one widow. The Fijians practise the couvade 
—when a child has been born both parents refrain from certain foods, 
and for a month after the birth of his first child the father must do 
no hard work. The Melanesians frequently kill or drive away their 
own children, and the Solomon Islanders are said to kill all their 
own children and to buy others to replace them. The puberty rites 
constitute an important part of education. At that time most boys 
are circumcised. After reaching puberty the young lad no longer 
sleeps in his parents’ house, but in the bachelors’ joint-house. For 
some months after reaching puberty the girls on the Solomon 
Islands are locked into a hut to which only elderly women are 
admitted. 

The spirits of the dead are believed to have an influence—an evil 
influence—on those that survive them. Ancestor-worship is 
universal, The remains of the dead are dried and kept entire by 
many tribes, but the majority only preserve the skulls. Wooden 
effigies of the dead are made and beautifully adorned, and in these 
the spirits of the departed may dwell, instead of roaming restlessly. 
In New Guinea large effigies of wood and stone are made, and the 
head is scooped out in order to provide a place for the skull of the 
departed. 

The custom of taboo is widespread. Intimation is given by some 
sign that a certain path is forbidden, or that some fruit must not be 
plucked. Fear of the consequences of transgressing this taboo 
ensures implicit obedience. Secret societies, to which members are 
admitted only on certain terms, play a great part in the cultus. 
These societies are confined to males above the age of puberty. 


275 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


Women are rigidly excluded from taking any part in their cele- 
brations, and the sound of the bull-roarer, or whirring stick, which 
represents the voices of spirits, is an intimation to the women that 
they must keep away from the place where the society is meeting. 
The ceremonies include masked dances, and the masks are some- 
times of enormous size. In New Pomerania masks are made of the 
fore-part of a human skull and worn on a cross-stick held in the 
mouth of the wearer. Masks like human and animal faces are made 
of wood in New Mecklenburg. In the north-west of New Mecklen- 
burg these mask ceremonies are understood to be in honour of the 
dead. 

4. The Tribes of Micronesia. Micronesia includes the island 
groups, Mariana, Pelew, Caroline, Marshall, and Gilbert. As the 
name indicates, these are all small islands, but they once carried 
a considerable population. These people, it has been generally 
assumed, are a mixture of different elements. Some ethnologists 
consider them a cross between Polynesians and Melanesians, by 
others they are looked upon as a cross between Malayans and 
Melanesians ; still others consider them across between all three. 
The ancient stone structures, which were already in ruins at the time 
of their discovery, and whose origin and meaning even the natives 
of that day did not know, prove that the islands of Micronesia must 
once have been inhabited by people of high civilization. Special 
interest has long been attached to an ancient structure in the island 
of Ponape, one of the Carolines. It consists of a range of buildings, 
built on the coral-reef on the shore, the buildings being separated by 
canals. The buildings are cyclopean squares, parallelograms, and 
trapeziums, and consist of large pentagonal and hexagonal pillars 
and blocks piled one above another. From Kubary’s investigations 
they seem to have been well-defended terrace-dwellings ; a few 
were apparently royal graves. The best preserved royal tomb is 
that of Nan Tauatsh. Inthe Mariana Islands have been discovered 
huge square pillars of coral, with half-conical capitals, every five 
or six of which are built in parallel rows. Recent investigations 
go to show that they were the foundations of pile-dwellings. 

The material civilization of Micronesia is centred in fishing. 
Wherever the soil allows, taro, the chief vegetable food, is grown, 
and artificial means are used to increase the fertility of the soil. 
The small size of the islands excludes the type of tillage that we 
have called forest-clearing. On higher, larger islands, like Pelew, 


276 


ulzog ‘umnasnyy yeorsojouyyy oy} ut ydersojoyd ve WoIy “eIseUelayY 
olz NVSSIN NI ANHOS FOVTTIIA 











£9 ALV Id 


PLATE 68 





MAN AND WOMAN FROM Naura ISLAND 255 
Micronesia. From photographs in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 


Protea bP wORUV ES iOn br he BAR TCH 


swamps are irrigated and drained, and on the small atolls, where 
there is no natural humus, good soil is produced by removing the 
rotten coral and filling the cavities with decaying vegetable and 
animal matter. The vegetable food includes taro roots and the 
fruit of the breadfruit-tree, coconuts, and bananas. Palm-wine is 
the popular intoxicating liquor. Kava, which the Polynesians 
make by mastication, is obtained here by pulverizing the roots. 

Owing to the absence of large game in Micronesia, hunting plays 
little part, but the Gilbert Islanders hunt the frigate-bird, using 
a kind of bola and walnut-sized bullet of tridacna or coral tied to a 
string. Fishing is much more important, both economically and 
socially. The chiefs issue orders for several localities to join in the 
manipulation of large nets in which great quantities of fish are taken. 
Fishing on a smaller scale is done with rod or fish-spear. The 
Pelew Islanders are very expert in the use of the spear. Shellfish 
are gathered by the boys. 

There are two types of houses—the family-house and the club- 
house for unmarried men. The latter is called baz. On the 
Carolines there are also club-houses for old men. Both types are of 
similar construction. They are built of strong beams and pillars 
with projecting roofs, and with the eaves running outward at an 
obtuse angle to meet them. The houses in Pelew have the gable- 
ends covered with pictorial writing in colour, and the architects are 
professionally trained men. The ancient clothing in Micronesia 
was a voluminous double apron of hibiscus fibre worn by the men, 
and beautifully patterned mats made of strips of pandanus leaves. 
Jewellery of all kinds is worn, made of shells, whelks, coconut, 
whalebone, etc. 

It is an important fact that pottery, although unknown to other 
Micronesians and Polynesians, was known to the ancient Chamorro 
on the Mariana Islands. In many parts of Micronesia the weaving 
of vegetable fibre is of a fairly high order. Wickerwork in mats 
and baskets is also well done. 

The Micronesians, like the Polynesians, use neither shield nor 
bows and arrows. In former times their characteristic weapons 
were sharks’ teeth. The Gilbert Islanders had their spears and 
swords studded thickly with rows of sharks’ teeth, and they hada 
- special tearing weapon, similarly studded, with which they tortured 
their prisoners. Their defensive armour was a kind of body mail 
made of coconut fibre thickly plaited. The lower body was 


277 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


protected by a thick pad of rayfish skin, and they wore a helmet 
made of the skin of the hedgehog-fish. 

Speaking generally, the Micronesians are good sailors. They use 
rafts and outrigger-boats, and propulsion is either by oar or sail. 
The Marshall Islanders use a curious kind of nautical chart. These 
charts are made of thin short rods, some straight and some curved, 
which intersect and cross each other, and small stones or shells are 
affixed to the rods at various places. They are used for teaching 
young navigators. The rods represent the chief sandbanks, the 
points of intersection indicate the fairways, and the chips of stone 
and shell stand for the various islands. 

In addition to the ordinary shell money, they use stone ‘coins,’ 
large discs, like grindstones, perforated in the centre. 

There is a strict division of social grades among the Micronesians. 
Among the Marshall Islanders there are four grades—the head- 
chiefs, chiefs, land-owning freemen, and a dependent, tributary 
population. In Yap there was an upper class, mostly of lighter 
complexion, and a lower class, mostly dark-skinned, and the dis- 
tinction was so strongly marked that the lower class lived in special 
villages by themselves, and could not marry out of their own class. 
Separation of the sexes was strictly carried out in Pelew. Just as 
the occupants of the bai, the bachelors’ house, formed a close 
corporation, so there were also female societies and corporations. 
The distinction was retained even in political organization, and side 
by side with, and independent of, the government of males, there 
was a government of women. The men sleep in the bats, and spend 
the day at their work and with their kindred. Every unmarried 
girl of twelve years goes to the baz of a district other than her own, 
and cohabits with all its occupants. In Pelew there is a hereditary 
monarchy, supreme over the various village chieftains. 

5. The Tribes of Polynesia. Polynesia includes all the islands 
in the Pacific east of Micronesia. Its extreme limits are New 
Zealand in the south-west, Hawaii in the north, and Easter Island 
far to the east. These three are the frontiers of the ethnological 
cecumene, and therefore the Polynesians have neighbours only on 
the west, v7z., Micronesia and Melanesia. Numerous islands lie 
scattered within these limits, but the most important are the 
Samoan group, the Tonga, or Friendly, Islands with Tahiti. 

In spite of the numerous ethnological differences between the 
various island groups—differences due to the long distances that 


278 


rhe OP i tot. O he LEE) EAR TE 


separate them and the variety of the physical features of the islands 
—the Polynesians are, on the whole, a fairly uniform population 
somatically, linguistically, and culturally. It is, therefore, possible 
to take a conjunct view of the people scattered over this wide area. 
We have already seen numerous features of Polynesian civilization 
in dealing with their neighbours, the Micronesians, and we have 
also seen clear marks of Polynesian influence in the eastern part of 
Melanesia, especially in Fiji. The most important physical features 
of the Polynesians are a short head, often deliberately shortened by 
deformation, and a low but well-shaped forehead, which, along with 
the curved nose, gives the Polynesian a more or less European look. 
The mouth is well shaped, although the lips are thick. The com- 
plexion is light brown. The hair ranges from black to auburn, It 
is much finer in texture than the hair of the Mongols, and it is 
inclined to be wavy, or even curly. The Polynesians, even the 
Maoris of New Zealand, who are the strongest-looking of them all, 
cannot be called a robust race. They are of medium size. The 
inhabitants of Easter Island, who live in miserable conditions, are 
of poorer physique than any other Polynesians. 

The material economy of the Polynesians is chiefly based on 
tillage and fishing, but there is also some stock-raising. Their 
tillage was of a fairly advanced kind, and included terrace-culture 
andirrigation. To this day there can be seen on many of the islands 
great terraced works, where soil has been artificially heaped up, and 
in Hawaii the remains of irrigation works for the raising of taro are 
said to extend for miles. On many of the islands, like Hawaii, 
Tahiti, the Marquesas, and Tongatabu, there are huge terraces, 
many yards in length and breadth, formed of stone blocks weigh- 
ing many tons and built without ‘mortar. On the Society Islands 
were found mulberry plantations that had been weeded and drained 
and manured with chips of shell and coral, and even on poverty- 
stricken Easter Island every single pisang plant had been sur- 
rounded with an irrigation trench. The chief crop in Polynesia 
is taro, but the breadfruit-tree, coconut, bananas, yams, sweet 
potatoes, sugar-cane, Piper methysticum, which yields the liquor 
called kava, and the paper-mulberry, from which tapa is made, are 
also grown. There is also a considerable number of wild plants 
that are of great economic importance—the Pandanus and various 
trees, like the iron-wood tree, useful for their timber. In Hawaii 
there is the tacca, from which starch is made, and in the interior of 


279 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


New Zealand there are two extremely important plants that are 
widely distributed—a fern with edible roots, rarauhe (Pieris 
esculenta), and the New Zealand flax, a fibrous grass, harakeke 
(Phormium tenax). 

There is practically no hunting in Polynesia, and therefore bows 
and arrows and spear-throwers are seldom seen. In former times, 
however, bows and arrows must have been known there, for Captain 
Cook expressly says the inhabitants of Tahitihad them. But even 
then they were only used for amusement and for shooting small 
animals like rats, and they had, therefore, little economic import- 
ance. In New Zealand there was one large bird, the moa, which 
was twelve feet in height, and which the natives are said to have 
hunted; but it became extinct long ago, and there is no other 
species of large game. Smaller game is caught or killed in traps and 
snares. The kivikivi was allured by night fires or by imitations of 
its call, and was then killed with sticks. Fishing, on the other hand, 
was eagerly pursued, and the appliances used for this purpose were 
among the most perfect of Polynesian tools. The New Zealanders 
made nets a thousand yards long, requiring hundreds of men for 
their manipulation. Rod- and line-fishing were universal. The 
hooks were of all sizes and made of bone, shell, and hard wood, and 
were baited with feathers or bright shells. The largest were used 
for catching sharks, the flesh of which is an important food item all 
over Polynesia. The Hawaiians are experts in catching dolphins, 
and go far out to sea for this purpose, even in stormy weather. 

Pig-breeding is the most prominent form of stock-raising in 
Polynesia, and unusual care is devoted to it. The young pigs are 
often suckled by women who have lost their children. In most of 
the larger islands, e.g., in New Zealand, Samoa, and the Society 
Islands, dogs are bredin great numbers. As early as Captain Cook’s 
time poultry was widely distributed. In Easter Island it was the 
sole domestic livestock. There is also much artificial rearing of 
fish—especially in Hawaii, where fish were reared in artificial ponds 
of different saline strength, and where the taro marshes were also 
utilized for the same purpose. 

The Polynesians were also fond of taming wild animals. The 
Easter Islanders had sea-swallows so tame that they perched on 
people’s shoulders, and the natives of Tongatabu went about 
carrying sticks on which tame pigeons and parrots were perched. 

The Polynesians were also very skilful in the art of preserving 
280 


tibet OPiS. Obl THE BAR TE 


food, and this enabled them to undertake sea voyages of some 
length. A form of food that is still popular among them is poz, a 
sort of porridge. The dough made from taro-flour is allowed to 
ferment, and it becomes a food that keeps for a long time. Bread- 
fruit was similarly preserved, and various preparations of the same 
useful kind were made from fish. The fat and blood of the pig were 
great dainties, but it was only the well-to-do who ate pork and 
dog-flesh. The New Zealanders even ate the decaying carcases of 
stranded whales. Another dainty is found only in Samoa and the 
Fiji Islands. It is the palolo worm (Eunice viridis), which appears 
on the surface of the sea for one day every year, and is caught in 
great numbers. In connexion with the cooking of food it must be 
remembered that the Polynesians have practically no earthenware 
vessels. Like the North American Indians, they boil water in 
wooden vessels by putting hot stones into the water, but this water 
is only used to facilitate the opening of shell-fish. The only people 
who really boil food are those who live near hot springs, and the 
process is the simple one of throwing the animal that is to be boiled 
into the hot water. Elsewhere the usual method of cooking food 
is to steam it in earthen pits over hot stones. The only beverage 
that is almost universal in Polynesia is kava, a moderately intoxi- 
cating liquor, dirty-grey in colour and bitter in taste, made from 
the root of Piper methysticum. Women and girls and, on the 
Marquesas, boys thoroughly masticate the dried root and drop it 
into a large wooden vessel, usually a tripod. This mass is mixed 
with water and left to ferment. 

The ordinary Polynesian dwelling is long and low, usually on a 
rectangular foundation. In the Friendly Islands it is pentagonal. 
A long roof of palm-leaves, reeds, or branches, shaped like an 
upturned boat, is supported laterally by short posts. The roof-tree 
is supported on tall, richly carved posts. The resemblance to a 
boat is increased by the bow shape of the sides. The side walls 
rest on a stone foundation. In the Marquesas and the Society 
Islands this foundation is broadened and raised so as to form a 
platform. This is the usual type of Polynesian house, although 
there are other varieties. In Hawaii the boat-shaped frame was 
covered with a thick roofing of thatch that reached to the ground, 
so that the house when finished looked like a grass hut. The 
New Zealand Maoris improved on the Polynesian style by giving 
their houses substantial walls of wood, with a small door and 

281 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


narrow windows in front. The front always faced the east, and a 
kind of vestibule was frequently added. The woodwork was 
richly carved. In the colder districts the people live in half- 
subterranean winter-houses, which are constructed so as to exclude 
the outside air as much as possible. The interior of the Polynesian 
house is divided into apartments by mats stretched from wall to 
wall. Every house has at least one such apartment as a 
sleeping-place. The interior, with its carved planks and posts and 
its wall tapestry, has a very pleasing appearance. The centre 
post is the place of honour. Close to it sleeps the master of the 
house with his chief wife, and here are kept the weapons and the 
utensils. Here, too, is the scooped-out depression for the fire. 
When lying down most Polynesians use a support for the head—a 
block of hard wood finely carved, or a piece of bamboo standing on 
short legs. 

The villages are usually situated near the seashore, at a point 
where a stream of fresh water flows into the sea. But, judging from 
the numerous ruinous buildings found farther inland, there must 
once have been a numerous population in the hills. 

On the whole, the Polynesians are well clad, but there are great 
differences in this respect between the various districts. The 
inhabitants of the eastern islands, especially those of Easter Island, 
wear nothing but ascanty apron. The usual material used is bark, 
tastefully ornamented, and wicker matwork. In Hawaii the people 
wear clothing trimmed with coloured feathers. The usual garment 
is the loin-cloth. The women of Tahiti wore a poncho-shaped gar- 
ment, through the middle of which the head was inserted. On 
great occasions matwork of plaited fibres is worn. Both sexes wore 
a turban—the men in Hawaii wore beautiful crowns made of gaily 
coloured feathers. The New Zealanders wore mats plaited from the 
fibres of a species of flax, but these were left off when the men were 
working or fighting. Some New Zealand tribes wore sandals of flax. 

The Polynesian coiffureissimple. They either let their hair hang 
down as it will, or they cut it off. Dyeing and powdering are very 
common. Disfigurements of various kinds are practised. The 
natives of Tahiti, Samoa, and Hawaii flatten the back of the 
cranium, and squeeze the crown of the head so as to form a point. 
In Tahiti the nose is squeezed flat, asin Micronesia. The septum of 
the nose and the external ear are perforated for jewellery, and the 
Faster Islanders wear heavy ear-pegs that greatly elongate the 
282 


Po baPROPEES ORO THE EARTH 


lobes. In many districts a testicle is removed to prevent disease, 
and the foreskin is divided. The body is smeared with coconut oil 
and dye. Tattooing is extremely common among the Maoris, the 
Samoans, and the natives of the Marquesas. The wonderful 
patterns with which the Maoris tattooed their heads and faces 
are well known. The process frequently took a whole year. The 
operator used a small instrument like a rake, the small teeth of 
which were driven into the skin with a flat wooden mallet. The 
colouring matter used by the Maoris was the soot of the dammar- 
pine. In many cases the tattooing was so complete as to include 
the eyelids, lips, gums, and even the private parts. 

In contrast to most other native races, the Polynesians are fond 
of adorning themselves with flowers. They wear them in their hair, 
in their ears, and in the septum of the nose. They are also very 
fond of feather-ornament, especially in Hawaii, and the splendid 
feather cloaks of the kings, chiefs, and priests used to be marvellous 
creations. Shells, bones, teeth, even human teeth, and tortoise- 
shell are fashioned into ornaments of all kinds, and the Polynesian 
is frequently found going about laden with this finery. 

In view of their comparatively high culture, it is remarkable that 
the Polynesians are ignorant of many important technical processes. 
They have practically no weaving and no pottery. The only 
weaving in Polynesia is that done in New Zealand, where mats are 
produced by an elementary process of weaving that is closely akin 
to wickerwork. The Easter Islanders used to make earthenware, 
but that was probably a relic of an old civilization far removed from 
that of later Polynesian culture. Large pots were also made in the 
Tonga Islands, but that was probably due to the extensive inter- 
course that was carried on between the natives of Tonga and the 
Melanesian inhabitants of Fiji. The chief stone industry is the 
making of stone axes. Most of these are finely polished, and are 
usually tied to a knee-shaped wooden handle. Simple axes with 
blades of obsidian were used on Easter Island, and spears with a 
cutting edge of obsidian. The most admirable stonework is that 
seen in the swords and other weapons made by the New Zealanders 
from hard nephritic rock. The Polynesians make good wicker- 
work, and produce fine matting and baskets. Matwork was used 
for sails, and the sailmakers, like the boatbuilders, were held in high 
esteem. The most highly developed technique is, however, wood- 
carving, and the most splendid examples of the Polynesian artistic 


283 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


sense are to be found in this art. It is sufficient to refer to the 
beautiful carving done by the Maoris, the finely carved wooden 
maces of the people of Tonga and the Marquesas, the wooden 
bowls of the Hawaiians, resting on human figures, and the finely 
designed patterns on their house-posts and boats. Another 
important industry was the manufacture of articles from bark, 
tapa, in which the Samoans did and do fine work. Certain kinds of 
bark are steeped till they are soft and are then beaten with grooved 
wooden mallets into sheets as thin as paper. These are dyed, and, 
by using leaves as matrices, they are impressed with all sorts of 
patterns. 

The chief weapons of offence used by the Polynesians in their 
frequent feuds and wars were wooden spears and wooden clubs. 
The points of the long wooden spears were either hardened by being 
charred, or reinforced by stone, or spine, or bone, or shark’s tooth. 
They were more than twelve feet long. Their swords or clubs were 
mostly of heavy oak and were very beautifully carved, the best 
being the oar-shaped clubs of the men of Tonga, the Marquesans, 
and the Hervey Islanders. Thick cudgels were also used for hand- 
to-hand fighting. Weapons were frequently made of sharks’ teeth, 
and the forked swords, thickly studded with such teeth, of the 
Society Islanders and the Gilbert Islanders were terrible weapons. 
Defensive armour took the form of wooden mail, and travellers 
speak of ‘rod-mail.’ Other means of defence were provided in the 
fortifications with which the settlements were surrounded. This 
form of defence was specially common in Hawaii, and in Samoa 
the defensive walls were prolonged into the forests. 

Social conditions in Polynesia are so complicated that it is hardly 
possible to give a brief, comprehensive description of them, and 
we can only allude to the leading points that regulate the social 
organization of the economiccommunities. First, there is a sharply 
drawn distinction between a privileged, governing class and a 
dependent, governed class, the latter including not only men, but 
practically all women. In the island of Rapa the only line of 
division is that of sex; all males belong to the privileged, sacred 
class, and all women to the dependent class. Below these two 
classes there is a third, war captives, who are complete slaves. 
There are differences of rank also, and a high rank is given to artisans 
‘who show special skill in certain industries. A very effective means 
of maintaining these social differences is the so-called taboo. It 


284 


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belongs to certain persons and confers certain privileges, but it can 
also be transferred to other persons and even to things. The object 
thus tabooed cannot be used by other people. The efficacy of the 
taboo varies. In many parts of Polynesia the taboo of the chiefs 
is so powerful that anything they happen to touch cannot be used 
by others. These chiefs must therefore be carried about by their 
servants, lest their feet touch the ground and make it taboo for 
others. In former days the chiefs in Tahiti had to be fed, so that 
they need not touch the food and make it taboo for the rest of the 
people. Another peculiar feature of the social organization in 
Polynesia is the small importance of the family in the narrow sense, 
compared with the numerous other forms of organization. This is 
the explanation of the prevalence of infanticide and the adoption 
of children from other districts. 

The economic units are based partly on consanguinity and partly 
on territoriality, but the former are the more important. There is 
a social unit, based on consanguinity and mother-right, composed 
of single families, and forming a sort of gens or clan, whose members 
are very numerous, although they may live far apart. This clan 
organization is not the same as that based on village territoriality, 
for, just as members of different clans may live together in the same 
village, so the members of a clan may be scattered throughout 
several villages. The connecting link between the clan members 
is the house of the supreme head of the clan. The tutelary deity 
of the clan-head belongs to this house, and therefore all members 
of the clan are named after it. When the clan-head dies, his 
successor, usually his brother, or, failing him, the eldest son of a 
former head, takes possession, and the widow with her children must 
remove to another house provided for the purpose by the clan-head 
before he dies. Side by side with this division into clans, there are 
other divisions based on other principles. The Maoris are classified 
in accordance with an ancient tradition of immigration. A unit, 
called iwi, comprises the descendants of those who came originally 
to the land in the same boat. In most of the islands the units were 
combined on territorial principles to form larger political units, and 
these larger units were controlled by a supreme chief. In New 
Zealand the various heads of the Rangatira tribe acknowledged as 
their supreme head a Rangatira nui, who had as a colleague for 
war purposes a Rangatira toa. Similarly, on the Marquesas, each 
tribe is headed by a hacatki, with a colleague toa who leads the tribe 

235 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


in war. In consolidated empires like the Camehameas and its 
successors in Hawaii European influences were at work. 

In keeping with the despotic power of the supreme head are the 
numerous ceremonies that surround his person, and even the divine 
honours paid him by his subjects. Certain external badges were 
worn by him alone. In Hawaiia certain kind of feather robe could 
be worn only by monarchs. In Hawaii and in Samoa there was a 
special court language spoken by the royal entourage, of which 
others were kept in ignorance. Whoever met the monarch had to 
cast himself to the ground, bare his shoulders, or even remove all 
clothing, and do homage by smelling at the monarch’s hands and 
feet. The monarch could only be addressed when he was seated, 
and what he had to say was conveyed through aspokesman. Next 
to him in importance was a Prime Minister, whose duty it was to 
see that the monarch’s orders were obeyed. In Hawaii this import- 
ant office was sometimes held by a priest, who was then Kahuna nut 
(supreme priest). 

The interregnum between the death of a reigning monarch and 
the accession of his successor was usually a time of anarchy, during 
which ordinary peaceful intercourse was replaced by hostilities. In 
Tahiti the death of a ruler was the signal for the outbreak of bitter 
feuds between the tribal chieftains. 

The Polynesians had large boats of splendid workmanship. 
Their large double boats are still characteristic, but they have also 
simple dug-outs, which they use for local traffic and for fishing. 
Their large double boats, whose keel consists of several large dug- 
outs, have their sides heightened with planks, and are finely carved 
at stem and stern. In New Zealand these boats were sometimes 
sixty or seventy yards long and nearly five feet wide, and are said 
to have carried from eighty to a hundred people. The large wicker 
sails were manufactured by special tradesmen. 

The Polynesians were fond of all kinds of competitive games. 
In Hawaii wrestling matches, boxing matches, and races were 
common. Other popular forms of sport were tobogganing on 
smooth planks down steep inclines, and the well-known surf- 
swimming, in which the swimmer had to show his skill in gliding 
through and over the surf on a plank about six feet long. 

They have a well-filled pantheon. The supreme deities are the 
creator gods, Tongaloa and Maui. These deities are common to 
the whole of Polynesia, and are the central figures of numerous 


286 


ttiberp PORE bssOr THE BARTH 


cycles of legends. In New Zealand Maui is the creator of the world, 
who raised out of the sea with his fishing-rod the North Island, 
which they call ‘‘Maui’s fish.”’ Besides these two there is a large 
number of lesser deities, demons, and giants, who are the servants 
of the supreme deities, and another group, consisting of deified men. 
There was also a special priestly class, those in Hawaii being very 
powerful. The Hawaiian religious ceremonies were conducted in 
large temples surrounded by imposing walls. In the temple courts 
stood large images of wood with gaping mouths, into which the 
food offerings were poured. Sacrifices of animals, and sometimes 
of human beings, were offered on the altar. 


THE TRIBES OF AFRICA 
THE RACIAL ELEMENTS IN THE POPULATION OF AFRICA 


The population of Africa includes six different elements. Four of 
them are found only in this continent. The Semites, who immi- 
grated into North Africa in historical time, and the Malay popula- 
tion of the eastern half of Madagascar, who are usually called 
Hova, belong to Asia. 

The chief groups found only in Africa are these four : 


(1) The comparatively light-skinned inhabitants of South Africa 
and the pygmies of Central Africa. 

(2) The Bantu, who, with the above, occupy the southern half of 
Africa—up to the equator. 

(3) The Sudan negroes, from the equator to the southern border 
of the Sahara. 

(4) The light-skinned Berber, in the Sahara and along the north 
edge of Africa, including the Nile region. 


These six groups are distinct from each other linguistically, 
somatically, and culturally, although there are, of course, also inter- 
mediate types found in various parts of the continent. 

The light-skinned inhabitants of South Africa are distinguished 
from the other groups by their languages, with their click sounds, 
and by their manifestly low civilization. The Hottentots, whom 
many ethnologists now consider to be a mixed people, combining 
Hamitic and Bushman elements, speak an inflectional dialect like 
the Hamitic languages. The Bantus speak languages that are more 


287 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


or less akin to each other ; the negroes of the Sudan speak isolating 
languages. 

Several attempts have been made in modern times to account 
for the origin of these mutually encroaching and interpenetrating 
strata of population, and to clear up their chronological relations. 
As in the similar attempts made to explain the origin of the 
American population, the error was committed of referring nearly 
everything in Africa, both the people and their culture, to immi- 
grations from outside, and admitting an African origin only for the 
Bushmen and their kin. As Asia has always been considered the 
original scene of human life and the source from which the world 
has been peopled, it was held that the various strata of population 
in Africa came in successive waves from Asia, finding entrance by 
the Isthmus of Suez. The clearest statement of such theories 
of immigration into large spaces that were empty is that of Stuhl- 
mann in his work Handwerk und Industrie in Afrika (1910). He 
explains the variety of the population of Africa by the following 
immigrations : 

I. The first wave was that of the Negritos or Sudanese, who came 
from South Asia in the Pluvial Age, which corresponds to the Ice 
Age of Europe. They brought with them, zvter alia, hoe-tillage, the 
banana, bows and arrows, drum language, masked dances, and 
secret societies. 

2. The second wave of immigration consisted of the ‘Proto- 
Hamites.’ They came in the latter half of the Pluvial Age from 
more northern and more westerly areas of Asia than the Negritos. 
From a miscegenation of these with the Negritos came the Bantus 
in East Africa, who spread thence toward the south and south- 
west. They brought with them sorgham (millet) and some domestic 
animals—the goat, fowls (?), and the dog. 

3. The third wave came into North Africa from the steppes of 
Western Asia at a time “infinitely prior’ to 6000 B.c. They were 
the light-skinned Hamites, the ancestors of the Egyptians, and the 
Berber. They tilled their fields, and brought with them long- 
horned cattle, the zebu, the fat-tailed sheep, and the greyhound. 
Pressing southward into Africa, they intermixed with the dark- 
skinned Bisharin, Dinka, Shilluk, Hausa, Fulah, Somali, Galla, 
Masai, and Watusi, and even with the Hottentots of the extreme 
south. 

4. In several waves, from 5000 B.c. onward, came the Semites 


288 


fe OO PEE Sy Ober Be by ARTE 


from the East, the Hyksos about 1800 B.c., the Geez about 300 B.c., 
and lastly the Arabs in the seventh and eighth centuries of our era. 

All such theories are to be rejected, unless they can be proved to 
have a historical basis, and the only immigrations that stand this 
test. are those of the successive waves of Semites mentioned above. 
Until further light is shed upon the subject, we must consider the 
Negritos or Sudanese, the Proto-Hamites, and the fair-skinned 
Hamites as typical and genuine African races. 


AFRICAN ANTIQUITIES 


The numerous megalithic graves, dolmens, and stone circles dis- 
covered in Africa go back to the ancient Berber people, and they 
will be best discussed when we come to deal with the Berber and the 
culture of ancient Egypt. But we must mention here the numerous 
antiquities in stone, bone, and ivory which have been discovered, 
the stone finds being distributed over wide areas of Africa. 

Large numbers of ancient stone tools have been found in caves 
and rubbish heaps in Cape Colony and along the east coast and 
farther north. The coast region of Upper Guinea, from Cape 
Verde to the mouth of the Niger, has also yielded numerous stone 
finds. Thousands of stone axes, called by the natives “axes of 
God” or thunderbolts, have been found here, as well as round, 
perforated stone disks, on which the negroes swear their oaths, 
‘so-stones.’ None of these discoveries fit in with the present iron- 
working stage of culture attained by the population of these areas, 
and we cannot include them in our separate treatment of the great 
population-groups of Africa. 

Mention should also be made of the ancient structures found in 
Mashonaland. The best-known of these is the ruined Simbabye. 
The ruins consist of two separate portions, one of which is on the top 
and the other at the foot of a granite hill about 150 feet high. 
The whole is enclosed by low walls, now overgrown with grass and 
brushwood. The building on the hill-top has walls 30 feet high, 
constructed of hewn stones fitted together without mortar. The 
circular structure in the valley is traversed by a labyrinth of walls. 
It is 210 feet in diameter, and the enclosing wall is 24 feet high. 
Several other ruined structures of this kind have been discovered in 
more recent times, such as the ruins of Matindela, Chilonga, and 
Fura; and in Matabeleland and Mashonaland there are numerous 


ay 289 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


stone terraces and walls of masonry which are supposed to have 
been fortifications. It is certain that these structures, which are 
not more than a few hundred years old, were not built by African 
peoples, but by outsiders. Numerous remains of mines and forges 
indicate that these unknown strangers were looking for gold. This 
fact has led many scholars to identify these ruins with the ancient 
land of Ophir, from which Hiram of Tyre and Solomon of Jerusalem 
derived their wealth. More probably Ophir must be looked for in 
South Arabia, but in any case no one can say with certainty where 
these metalworkers came from. There is no doubt, however, that 
foreign influences radiated from the sites of these ruins, and their 


traces can be followed among the Bantu as far as the west coast 
of Africa. 


THE NATIVE GROUPS OF AFRICA 


I. The Fair-skinned South Africans and the Pygmies. The 
fair-skinned South Africans include two tribes who have several 
somatic features in common, and who belong to an entirely different 
stratum of civilization from that of the other African races, but 
who, at the same time, differ considerably from each other in their 
material economy. They are the Bushmen and the Hottentots. 
Centuries ago they occupied a much larger area than they do to-day, 
and they and the pygmies may rightly be looked upon as the last 
representatives of a stratum of civilization that preceded negro 
culture proper. From the anthropological point of view, the two 
races have in common a sallow complexion, hair inclined to curl 
into spirals so as to assume a bushy appearance, and a skin that is 
inclined to wrinkle. In the women, especially the Hottentot 
women, there is a tendency to accumulate adipose tissue at the 
posterior, 7.¢., steatopygy. There is a difference, on the other hand, 
between the two tribes in the size of the head. Like the pygmies, 
the Bushmen are almost dwarfish in size—the men are seldom 
taller than 4 ft. 8-10 in., and the women are even shorter—but 
the Hottentots are of normal height. 

The languages of the Hottentots and Bushmen are entirely 
different from the Bantu tongues, but there is little resemblance 
between the two. The only real resemblance is the ‘click’ that is 
characteristic of both. 

That the Bushmen in former times occupied a far more extensive 
area than the districts to which they are now confined is proved by 
290 


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the remains of ancient Bushman culture in the shape of rock 
drawings found in the extreme east of Africa. In historical time 
hordes of Bushmen lived in the hill country and waged constant 
war with the Kafirs, and many thousands of them were killed by 
the Boers as late as the nineteenth century. The chief Bushman 
territory to-day is Middle Kalahari. Considerable communities of 
this race live there still in independence, whereas the Bushmen 
in adjacent regions are dependent upon Bantu tribes. Again, 
separated from these Kalahari Bushmen by tribes of Hottentots, 
and with a considerable admixture of Hottentot blood, there are 
Bushmen on the inaccessible plateaux of western Great Namaqua- 
land and in the desert of Namib. 

Although the pure Bushmen are anthropologically a fairly com- 
pact unit, there are differences of language between the various 
groups, the most important being that between the Caucau Bush- 
men and the Ngami Bushmen, who both live in Middle Kalahari. 

All Bushmen tribes who have not yet been affected by outside 
influences are characterized by the total absence of agriculture and 
stock-raising. Their animal food is entirely derived from hunting, 
and their vegetable food consists of what they can gather from 
wild plants. They are typical hunters and collectors. The game is 
simply hunted down. For days on end the Bushman pursues his 
quarry, allowing it no opportunity to rest or eat or drink, until he 
can strike it down. His hunting weapons are the bow and small 
poisoned arrows with detachable points, throwing-club, pitfalls, 
traps of all kinds, and large game-enclosures into which the game 
is driven. Remains of ancient enclosures of this kind still exist. 
They extend for miles, and represent an amount of labour which 
the Bushman could have accomplished only under more favourable 
conditions than those now obtaining. When the game decreased 
in the Bushman area, the yield of the chase, of course, diminished, 
and the present-day Bushman depends very largely for sustenance 
on gathered roots and tubers. Both men and women dig these up 
with a digging stick, whose weight is increased by the addition of 
a stone ring. 

The Bushman’s nomadic life explains the simple nature of his 
dwelling. In the dry season he is confined to places well supplied 
with water-holes, but when the rainy season comes he moves out to 
the extensive veld, where each family has its own gathering and 
hunting ground. At times, however, he has very great difficulty 

291 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES*OF MANKIND 


in obtaining water, and, although he finds a kind of substitute in 
some species of melons that are available at the beginning of the 
dry season, he has to find water somehow. He rams a hole into 
the hard ground, and with a suction tube, provided with a filter of 
grass, he sucks drop by drop the water that collects there and stores 
it in the shell of an ostrich-egg. When he is roaming about a 
quantity of brushwood is tied together to form a house. On the 
veld he erects windbreakers of a more solid kind, but these are 
always placed at a considerable distance from water, firstly, for his 
own safety, and, secondly, in order not to scare the game. 

Considering the climate, his clothing is very scanty. The man 
usually wears merely a triangular piece of hide, which is drawn 
through between his legs and fastened round his waist. The 
woman’s garment is usually larger, and is provided with fringes. 
Both sexes wear a cloak of skins sewn together, and women find the 
cloak helpful for carrying their children about. 

Their tools and implements are of the simplest kind. They have 
no pottery. Their only industry is the manufacture of necklets 
made of perforated disks of ostrich-eggshells. They make fire by 
means of the fire-drill. 

The opinion long prevailed that the Bushmen, living a robber 
life and being hunted from place to place, had no organization be- 
yond family-groups and loosely compacted hordes. The excellent 
accounts of Passarges, however, show that, at least in former times, 
they had a considerable degree of political organization. The 
Bushman tribe of Aikwe had a well-organized state, on identically 
the same feudal principles as prevailed among the Bantu tribes. 
These political entities were under the leadership of an hereditary 
head-chief, who, however, displayed no pomp and wore no insignia. 

Polygamy prevails, and indeed the Bushman frequently marries 
his wife’s sisters and cousins. It is said that three or four wives are 
quite common. Exogamy is the rule, to the extent that no man 
can marry within his own group or horde. 

With regard to the mental culture of the Bushman, the figure- 
drawings which are found in great numbers on rock faces or in caves 
have always aroused universal admiration, They consist of frescoes 
and bas-reliefs, representing animals and, rarely, human beings. 
Some of them depict entire scenes from life, hunting or fighting. 
Mention should also be made of their musical bows. A small bow 
is held at one end between the teeth, and the bow-string is plucked 
292 


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South-west Africa 


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with the finger. The Bushman’s special gift for imitating the voices © 
and attitudes of animals has always been admired. The dances 
frequently imitate animals in hot passion. ‘Their religion consists 
largely of spirit- and ancestor-worship, and the usual African magic 
and soothsaying rods, including the bull-roarer, or whirr, are an 
important part of their paraphernalia. 

Of the Hoittentot tribes, who occupied large areas of South Africa 
prior to the coming of European culture, only few fragments remain, 
and even these have almost entirely lost their independence in their 
wars with Germany. There are two Hottentot areas. In 1652, 
when the Dutch first settled at the Cape, there were Hottentot 
tribes from the south point of Africa up to the Orange River. Owing 
to their ruthless treatment by Europeans, both English and Boers, 
the Hottentots have practically disappeared from this whole area. 
Independent, pure Hottentots are no longer to be found there. 
Nor have the Corana Hottentots, who are believed to be closer akin 
to the Bushmen than any other Hottentot tribes, been able to ward 
off foreign culture. Some Hottentots of mixed blood, however, 
had already left the region at the beginning of the nineteenth 
century and had crossed the Orange River. These were, first, the 
so-called Griqua, who founded Griqualand, north of the Orange, 
but were finally incorporated in the British Empire, and, secondly, 
the Orlam, who, after many wanderings, finally settled in Great 
Namaqualand, and came later under German rule. This brings us 
to the second Hottentot area, usually called by the generic name 
of Naman. In former times these Naman tribes had occupied a 
much larger area, extending north and north-east into what is now 
Ovambadyeru and Hereroland, At the present time the Topnaars, 
who occupy the hinterland of Walfish Bay, are the most northerly 
tribe of these Naman Hottentots. The Swartbois had settled not 
far from them. These, as well as the tribes in the south of what 
was German territory, have utterly lost their independence. Of 
other tribes of Hottentots who are now gradually disappearing, 
we may mention the Bondelswaarts, the Fransmann Hottentots, 
the so-called ‘Red People,’ and the Chaibsh Hottentots of Keet- 
mannshoop. 

The immigration of the Orlam, or Gunun, took place in several 
successive waves. The first of these consisted of the Witbois, who 
crossed the Orange River soon after 1800 and finally settled in 1862 
in Gibeon. They were followed by the Bethanians, or Haikauan, 


293 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


who founded Beersheba. The last wave was the ‘Africaner’ or 
Aicheans. Under their leader, Jonker Africaner, they joined the 
Red People in their fight against the Herero, but, after having 
shown great prowess in war, they wasted their strength in inter- 
necine feuds, and were finally crushed by the Germans. According 
to a census taken in 1909, the entire Hottentot population in the 
German Protectorate amounted to only 14,000 souls. 

In contrast to the Bushmen, the Hottentots are typical cattlemen, 
but hunting is also an important part of their economic life. Cattle 
and sheep are their chief herds, and it is worthy of notice that, in 
contrast to the negroes, it is not the Hottentot men, but the women, 
who milk the cows and sheep. Like the Bushmen, the Hottentots 
hunt with small bows and poisoned arrows and a throwing-club 
about three feet long. They also set snares and dig pitfalls; and 
kraals, or villages, unite to undertake large drives. Some Hotten- 
tots on the coast also fished, but fishing was never an important 
industry, because the Hottentots never had boats of any kind. The 
Hottentots on Walfish Bay were always a poverty-stricken people. 
The genuine Hottentots never adopted agriculture, so that their 
vegetable food was merely the wild roots which were gathered by 
the women, 

The Hottentot houses are light, portable tents. A framework of 
supple poles forming an oval and tied together at the top, is set in 
the ground. It is first covered with rush mats, and then with skins. 
The houses in a kraal, or village, are placed so as to form a circle, 
leaving in the centre an open space, in which the sheep are collected 
at night. The clothing of both sexes is a loin-cloth and a cloak of 
skin. They wear sandals, either plaited or made of leather. The 
women wear a pointed cap, and in wet weather the men wear a cap 
of sheepskin with the wool inside. The women also wear round 
the waist a string hung with perforated shells of ostrich-eggs and 
over that a belt with tortoise-shells in which they keep their buchu 
ointment for cosmetic purposes. In former times they also wore 
ivory rings on the upper arm, and sometimes as many as a hundred 
leg-rings made of twisted pieces of sheepskin. Both men and 
women smeared themselves with an ointment of fat, pounded buchu, 
and soot or ochre. 

In contrast to the Bushmen, the Hottentots are good potters. 
For cooking and for holding milk or water they use earthenware 
dishes, as well as all sorts of wooden vessels. There is also an 


294 


hi bee ho PMR SOR PEE AR GE 


extensive industry in furs and leather. In spite of the auriferous 
nature of their territory, before the coming of the Europeans the 
Hottentots used neither gold nor silver, and very little copper 
was inuse. On the other hand, they smelted iron. Their smiths 
used anvils and hammers of stone. Their bellows were a goatskin 
bag provided with a valve and with an earthenware airpipe. 

The original political organization of the Hottentots has practi- 
cally disappeared. Informer times several families formed together 
a territorial community, a werft, at the head of which was a heredi- 
tary werftelder. Several of these were combined under one common 
chief, whose office was also hereditary in the male line. These 
chiefs, usually called ‘captains,’ were the leaders in war, but they 
were to some extent under the control of a body known as the 
‘council,’ Marriage was polygamous: every man had as many 
wives as he could support. Marriage was arranged by the mutual 
agreement of the parents of the couple, and there was a mutual 
exchange of presents, and usually a dowry. A boy bears his 
mother’s family name, and a girl that of her father’s family. On 
reaching manhood the boy takes his father’s name in addition to 
his mother’s. The position of a wife in her family is a more honour- 
able one than is usually the case among the negroes proper, and the 
younger brothers and sisters have to show some respect toward 
those who are older. 

Certain forms of misbehaviour, including cattle-stealing and some 
other forms of theft that are considered heinous, were frequently 
punished by extremely cruel floggings, and even with death. 
Murder was mostly avenged by the next of kin. 

The Hottentots are considered very musical. Their instruments 
are the gora or gom-gom, such as the Bushmen use, and drums, 
consisting of earthen pots with sheepskin drawn tightly over them. 

At the present time all the Hottentots have been converted to 
Christianity, so that there is little trace left of their original religious 
ideas. In former times the moon seems to have been worshipped. 
Among the numerous myths dealing with animals and persons are 
those that tell of the famous magician Heitsi Cibib. The dead are 
buried in side niches in caves; before being buried the bodies 
are placed in a crouching posture, trussed up with thongs, and sewn 
into skins or mats. 

In connexion with the Hottentots mention has to be made of 
another race. Their dark complexion betrays a different origin, 


295 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


but in course of time they have increasingly adopted not only the 
Hottentot speech, but also their manners and customs. These are 
the Hill-Damara. Before they were driven by the Naman into 
Damaraland they roamed, it is said, as far south as the Orange 
River. At the present time a large number of them have been 
civilized by missionary effort, and have formed a settlement at 
Ocombahe, where they have turned to stock-farming and horti- ~ 
culture. The remainder still roam in the north of the former 
German Protectorate, leading a life like that of the Bushmen, but 
many of them have cattle of their own. 

All over the African continent, from the south up to the moun- 
tains of Abyssinia, we come upon tribes who resemble the Bushmen, 
both in their ways of life and in their diminutive size. Even the 
ancients had heard of diminutive men, who were said to inhabit 
the heart of Africa. The Greeks called them Pygmies. They are 
mentioned in Homer, and by Herodotus; and Aristotle locates 
them on the lakes round the sources of the Nile. To this day these 
pygmy tribes are most numerous on the Albert Lake and Edward 
Lake, where they are usually called Batwa or Acca. 

They were a hunting people, and their scanty vegetable food was 
limited to what they could gather in the jungle, or take from the 
negro tribes around them. It was inevitable that negro influence 
should affect them. Explorers in Urundi and in the Congo basin 
report that they have entirely lost their original language and 
adopted those of their negro neighbours. They have also taken to 
agriculture and to pottery. Their weapons are small bows and 
poisoned arrows, and their skill makes them dangerous enemies. 

2. The Bantu Tribes. The name Bantu is the plural of umunia, 
man, and is the collective appellation for a large group of African 
peoples, who are linguistically akin, but who differ both somatically 
and culturally. The name Bantu was chosen by Wilhelm Bleek to 
indicate the languages of this extensive group. In the dialects and 
in the structure there are numerous resemblances. The charac- 
teristic feature of the Bantu tongues is the prefixes, which determine 
both declension and conjugation. In the east of the Bantu area the 
prefix U denotes the territory of a tribe, e.g., Uganda. MM denotes 
the individual person, e.g., Mganda; Wa or Ba denotes several 
persons, or even the whole tribe, e.g., Waganda or Baganda, and Kz 
denotes the language, e.g., Kiganda. 

In culture the greatest differences are between the western 


296 


HE? PEOPLES OF4ITHE EARTH 


peoples on the one hand, and the southern and eastern peoples on 
the other. In the west the economy is mainly agricultural, the 
chief crops being manioc, bananas, batatas, and yams. In the 
east and south the chief crop is millet, and stock-farming and 
dairying are also carried on. In the west the houses are rectangular 
with a saddle roof ; in the east and south they are circular with a 
conicalor domed roof. Inthe west the chief weapon is the bow and 
arrow ; in the east and south, the spear. In the west the shields 
are made of wood or basketwork ; in the south and east they are of 
skin and leather. In the west the clothing is made of bark and 
palm fibres ; in the east and south, of skin, leather, and, occasionally, 
cotton stuffs. In the west fetishism prevails, as well as secret 
societies, masked dances, and carved idols ; in the south and west 
none of these are found. 

In our description of the chief Bantu tribes we begin in the south- 
east of the continent with a group which bears the collective name 
of Kafirs. The name is from Arabic and means ‘unbeliever’; it 
was given to the inhabitants of the east coast of Africa by the 
Portuguese. 

The area of the Kafirs, whose chief representatives are the Zulu 
in the north-east and the Xosa, or Amacosa, in the south-east, was 
originally confined to the coast-lands east of the Drakenberg from 
the Great Fish River to Delagoa Bay. But great migration 
movements, largely due to the founding of the Zulu kingdom at the 
beginning of the nineteenth century, led to a very large extension of 
this area. To a slight extent these movements were southward, 
but the Fecane, who at that time moved northward, have prospered 
since 1830 under English rule. They have become known as Fingu. 
The most important movement was that of the Matabele (about 
1817), which led to the foundation of a large empire in Mashonaland, 
between the Zambesi and the Limpopo. The Angoni went still 
farther afield. They crossed the Zambesi, marched northward on 
both sides of the Nyassa, and in Livingstone’s time (1866) devas- 
tated that region. It was only after a long, severe struggle that 
the German colonial troops defeated them in 1906 and compelled 
them to settle. A portion of the Angoni, under the name of the 
Watuta, went as far as Victoria Nyanza. The cause of all these 
upheavals of the nineteenth century was the Zulus, till then an 
insignificant people. Under their chief Tshacca (1818-1828), how- 
ever, they became a warlike people, superior to any other in South 


297 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


Africa, and set out on an unprecedented career of conquest over 
their neighbours. The entire life of the people was subordinated to 
war. Instead of the ancient sib-organization, Tshacca introduced 
army corps, each under the command of a war-chief. He replaced 
the former tactics of scattered fighting with the javelin by storm 
attack with a short, strong thrusting spear. He only allowed his 
warriors to marry when they were thirty or forty years of age, and 
they were replaced by young men of the tribes whom he had 
conquered. Tshacca’s policy of conquest was continued by his 
successors. The best-known of them was Cetewayo. In 1879 he 
waged war against England, and it was only after several defeats 
that England succeeded in subduing the Zulus and taking Cetewayo 
a prisoner to Cape Town. 

To the west of the Kafirs, between the mountains and the 
Kalahari, is the area of the Betshuan (Bechuan) tribes. These are 
akin to the Kafirs in language and civilization, but they are less 
warlike. To this group belong, among others, the Basuto and the 
Barolong, and the Bacalahari. The last-mentioned have sunk to 
the level of the Bushmen. One branch of the Basuto was the 
Macololo, Under Sebituane they marched northward, conquering 
all before them, and established a large, but short- lived, empug on 
the Upper Zambesi. 

On the high ground between the Zambesi and the Limpopo comes 
a number of tribes, including the Mashona and the Macalaca, closely 
akin to the Betshuans. They were subsequently conquered by the 
Matabele on the victorious march already mentioned. In the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when the Portuguese first entered 
the country, there flourished here a great state, called Monomotapa, 
after the title of its ruler, We have already mentioned that the 
ruined buildings discovered in this territory must be ascribed to a 
different population. 

The most interesting of all the Zambesi peoples are the Barotse 
and Mambunda. They have high political gifts, and under their. 
rule the other tribes on the Upper Zambesi have been conjoined into 
one large empire, in which the Barotse occupy the leading position, 
and the Mambunda the second position in the state. They were 
conquered for a time by the Macololo, but the Barotse established 
a new and flourishing state on the ruins of the Macololo Empire. 
The Macololo have now practically died out, but their language, 
Sesuto, is still the universal language of intercourse between the 


298 


SHES PEOPLES) Oba fTb? EAR T bi 


tribes in the Empire. Since the beginning of the twentieth century 
the Barotse-Mambunda Empire has been included in the British 
sphere of interest. 

Before dealing with the more northerly Bantu tribes, we may 
mention the south-west group. They are separated from the others 
geographically, and are very different from them ethnologically. 
They include, among others, the Herero (also called Ovaherero or 
Damara) and the Ovambo. The Herero, known to all the world 
since their war with Germany (1904-1906), when they were practi- 
cally extirpated, were the only Bantu tribe who lived solely by 
stock-farming. They had no agriculture of any kind. They came 
at a comparatively late period into the region that had been occu- 
pied by the Hill-Damara. According to their own legends, they 
migrated about two hundred years ago from the southern Congo 
basin. The Ovambo, in contrast to the Herero, pursue agriculture 
and grow millet, beans, and peas. 

Returning to the Bantu tribes of East Africa, we must add to the 
Zambesi tribes a group of peoples, all of whom wear the peg in the 
upper lip. The most important of them are the Macua, in Portu- 
guese East Africa, and the Maconde, to the north of the Rovuma. 

The region north of the Rovuma, the former German East Africa, 
has up till recent days been the scene of numerous shiftings and 
displacements of the populations. These were due, first, to the 
incursion of the Angoni from the south, which has been already 
referred to, and, second, to the incursion of Hamitic elements from 
the north. A large part of the Bantu tribes who were originally 
settled here (Stuhlmann calls them the Older Bantus, in distinction 
from the Bantus of the lake area and the younger or northern 
Bantus) have either been driven into the most remote corners of 
the country, like the Wagogo and others, or into the mountains 
of Kilimanjaro and Usambara, like the Dshagga and others, In 
this process the tribes thus ousted from their original seats have 
adopted many of the weapons, costumes, war-ornaments, and the 
warlike habits of their oppressors. The Wagogo and Dshagga have 
adopted those of the Masai in the north, and the Wahehe, Wabena, 
and Wassangu those of the Angoni in the south. For long the 
Wassangu roamed, robbing and plundering, terrifying the whole 
region from Ugoge to Conde, until they in turn were subdued by 
the Wahehe. Among the tribes who were either left in peace or 
resisted the invaders were the Wanyamwesi, who occupied the 


299 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


centre of the former German Protectorate. The name Wanyamwesi 
is only a collective name, applied by the coast people to a number 
of kindred tribes. The Swaheli, who inhabit the long, narrow strip 
of coast of equatorial East Africa, were also included under the 
name, but centuries of Arab and Indian influence have so changed 
them that they now occupy a position by themselves. When the 
Portuguese first established themselves here at the beginning of the 
sixteenth century, both the Arabs and the native chieftains, who 
now lorded it over them and now were dominated by them, 
acknowledged the Portuguese sovereignty. But, at the end of the 
seventeenth century, the _Imams of Muscat overran this coast also, 
capturing Mombasa in 1698 and Zanzibar in 1784, and thus bringing 
under their sway the whole region dcwn to the coast of Mozambique. 
The land from the equator to Cape Delgado was now a dependency 
of Muscat, until in 1858 a separate sultanate of Zanzibar was 
established owing to the existence of two heirs. As is well known, 
the coast region subsequently came into the hands of the German 
Empire. 

The Bantus of the lake area are for the most part under the 
dominion of the Wahuma (Bahima or Watussi), who are undoubtedly 
of Hamitic descent, although they have long since lost their lan- 
guage and adopted that of the subjugated Bantus. Tradition tells 
that they came from the north-east across the Nile and settled first 
in Unyoro. From there they proceeded to establish a great empire 
that extended over almost all the territory between the lakes— 
Urundi, Ruanda, and other districts—but which soon afterward 
collapsed. They differ somatically from the original Bantus of 
this region by their tall, slender figure (some of them are of gigantic 
height), by their narrow face, with thin, high nose, and by their 
lighter complexion. Culturally they are also different. They are 
stock-farmers, whereas the Bantus till the soil. In Uganda at the 
present day the Wahuma are in the background. They work as 
cattlemen, and are looked down upon by the agricultural Waganda ; 
but tradition has it that the empire was founded by a Rhuma from 
Unyoro. 

The chief representatives of Hamitic culture east of Lake Victoria 
are the Masai, who poured in irresistible conquest over British East 
Africa and the north-east of what was German East Africa. Exter- 
nally the Masai betray a greater admixture of negro blood than the 
Wahuma, and their language is more closely allied to that of the 
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Bari on the White Nile than to any other. In 1891 rinderpest 
robbed them of their means of subsistence, and they have now 
become a wretchedly poor people. Some of them have taken to 
agriculture. 

The tribes inhabiting the area west of the great Central African 
Divide, north of the watershed between the branches of the Congo 
River and the Zambesi, and south of the line that forms the boun- 
dary between Bantus and Sudanese, are called the West Bantus. 
The area in question is roughly that of the Congo and its affluents, but 
it also includes the coast region as far as the Cameroons. Whereas 
the East African territory is steppe, this spacious area is covered 
with luxuriant tropical vegetation. Only the chief tribes can be 
mentioned here. Several of them established large states, especially 
the Lunda-Luba tribes, south of the main Congo, and the Bacongo, 
on the Lower Congo. 

As early as the end of the sixteenth century tales had reached the 
coast of a large negro state, situated on the north slope of the water- 
shed between the Zambesi and the sources of the Kasai River. It 
was the Lunda state, so called after the chief tribe, or the Empire of 
Muata Yamvo, as it was called after its rulers. The dimensions of 
this empire, which extended westward as far as the Cuango, must 
at one time have been enormous, especially if we include the Casongo 
Empire in the north-east and the Casembe Empire in the south-east, 
both of which were, at least for a time, tributary to the Great Jumbo. 
The Lunda Empire may be described as an absolute feudal state, 
comprising a number of regions whose chiefs were free and inde- 
pendent in all internal affairs subject to the good pleasure of the 
Great Jumbo, but they paid him tribute and served in his wars. In 
order that these tributary chiefs might not forget their dependence 
upon him, Muata Jamvo retained some of their sons and other 
relatives at his court, and in his dreaded police he had another 
means of visiting his displeasure on any disobedience. A special 
peculiarity of this empire was the presence at the side of the Great 
Jumbo of a woman, the so-called Luco-kesha. She was the ruler’s 
colleague. She was looked upon as mother of all the Great Jumbos, 
had her own court, received as her own the tribute of certain dis- 
tricts, and the newly elected Great Jumbo had to be confirmed in 
his office at her hands. Both Muata Jamvo and Luco-kesha had 
to be children of one of the chief wives of the previous Jumbo, and 
were selected from among the qualified candidates by the four chief 

301 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


councillors of the empire. The office of these councillors, who were 
called cannapumba, was hereditary to the extent that the Great 
Jumbo could bestow it only on the sons of previous holders. In all 
important questions these councillors had to be consulted by the 
ruling pair. The nobles, called kzlolo, supplied ambassadors and 
executive officials, including police, as well as the leaders in elephant 
hunts and district chiefs. Each kilolo had the privilege of ex- 
pressing his opinion in the National Assembly, and most of the 
Jumbos respected such opinions. The court consisted of a number 
of kilolos, the executioner, and able-bodied slaves, who bore the . 
ruler on their shoulders. He had other slaves who carried his litter. 
The Luco-kesha had a number of husbands, one of whom was chief 
husband, and bore the title of ‘wife,’ so as not to seem to encroach 
on the Luco-kesha’s dignity. When a Great Jumbo died the 
capital, Masumba, was entirely abandoned and replaced by a new 
one, which was invariably built not far from the old capital. 

In 1890 the Great Jumbo recognized Belgian sovereignty, and in 
1894 his empire was divided between the Congo State and the 
Portuguese colony of Angola. | 

We have already mentioned the two states, north-east and south- 
east of the Lunda Empire, and at times tributary to it, Muata 
Casembe and Casongo. The Casembe was at one time powerful 
enough to put 20,000 warriors into the field. The tribute to the 
Great Jumbo was only occasionally paid. The despotic rule and 
the cruelties of the Casembe who ruled in the years between 1860 | 
and 1870 had impoverished and depopulated the country. The 
district of Katanga, still known for its wealth in copper, and consti- 
tuting the largest part of the Casembe Empire, was conquered by 
Msiri, who belonged to the Wanyamwesi. Msiri established there 
an empire of hisown. From that time Casembe’s state was limited 
to the small area south of Lake Mera as far as Lake Tanganyika, 
and is now the extreme north-east corner of British Rhodesia. 
Msiri’s empire in Katanga was short-lived. He refused to come 
under the protection of the Congo State, and in 1891 a Belgian shot 
him out of hand, and his state was broken up into small com- 
munities, each under a village chief. 

Even before that time the empire of Casongo had been broken 
up. It bounded Katanga on the north, and extended to approxi- 
mately 5° south latitude. Its chief representatives were the 
Warua, the eastern branch of the great Baluba people. The incur- 
302 


fen PE VOPRE RS Oh) tobe BAR bi 


sions of Arab slave-dealers in the second half of the nineteenth 
century and the Belgian wars against the Arabs hastened its 
downfall. 

Still more important than these states, and of greater significance 
for Africa at the time of the first discoveries, was the great Congo 
Empire with its capital, San Salvador. Its territory included large 
regions north and south of the lower course of the Congo River from 
Stanley Pool downward. It belonged to the Bacongo, a large group 
of tribes speaking various dialects of one and the same language. 
The negro kingdom, discovered in 1484 by Diego Cao and Martin 
Behaim, had at an early date accepted Christianity. From 1534 
onward there was even a resident bishop in San Salvador, and there 
was from time to time brisk trade between the Portuguese and the 
King of Congo, who had ambassadors even as far away as Rio de 
Janeiro. About the middle of the sixteenth century, however, the 
kingdom, in spite of Portuguese help, succumbed to the raids of the 
Dshagga, who captured and burnt the capital. In the seventeenth 
century, when the Dshagga had settled down in the hinterland of 
Angola, Congo for a time regained its position, but at the end of 
the seventeenth century its power was again completely broken. 
Several of its provinces, like Loango, Cacongo, and Angoy, pro- 
claimed their independence, and the state was irreparably ruined. 

Numerous tribes, besides those already mentioned, have formed 
together considerable states, and occupy the Congo basin. To the 
north, east of the Congo River, are the Manyema, notorious on 
account of their warlike qualities and their cannibalism. For 
decades they were the aiders and abettors of the Arabs in their 
devastating slave raids in the southern parts of the present Congo 
state. 

To the north of the Baluba tribes are numerous small sub-tribes, 
the Bassonga, distinguished by their highly developed industry, 
especially smith-work. And, encircled by the Baluba and the 
Bassonga, are the Bacuba, with their magnificent wood-carving and 
plush-like textiles. The principal trading people on the Middle 
Congo are the Babangi. Their language has come to be the uni- 
versal trade-language of these areas. Then, between the Upper 
Cuango and the Casai are the Kioque or Kioko, daring hunters and 
clever merchants, who have gained great influence in the adjacent 
Lunda Empire, which once held them in thrall. 

Coming to the coast region, adjoining the ancient Congo Empire 


=k 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


on the north, we have the Fan, who came as strangers from the 
north-east a few hundred years ago. They occupy the whole 
country between the River Ogowe in the south, the Sanaga in the 
north, and the Sanga in the east. They drove the original popu- 
lation south across the Ogowe, and forced themselves like a wedge 
between them and the Bantu tribes in the southern Cameroons. 
The chief of these last-named tribes are the Bacoco group, includ- 
ing what is perhaps the best-known of the Cameroon peoples, the 
Dwala. Farther north are the Bacunda, and, in the grazing land, 
the Bali. Both of these have a strong infusion of Sudan-negro 
blood. 

We now proceed to give a general account of the culture of the 
Bantu peoples mentioned in the foregoing pages. 

The Bantus live mainly on the yield of their agriculture. With 
the exception of the Herero, who stand apart from the rest in many 
other ways, there is no Bantu tribe without agriculture, and in the 
case of most of them, their whole domestic economy is based upon 
it. It consists chiefly of jungle-clearing, and the ash of the burnt 
brushwood and tree-branches is the sole manure the soil receives. 
Only the Ovambo dress the soil with dung. The Wahehe and other 
tribes set out their fields and plantations in long, raised beds, and 
this arrangement allows a better control of the irrigation. The 
planting tools are pointed sticks. Bulbs and tubers are lifted with 
spade-shaped wooden tools. Hoes are in general use, usually with 
an iron blade, but sometimes the entire hoe is of wood. Sickle- 
shaped cutters are used to sever the bananas. Children are posted 
on small field platforms, in order to scare birds by shouting and by 
the noise of clappers. The crops of the western Bantus are not the 
same as those of their neighbours to the south and to the east. 
There cereals predominate, chiefly the three species of millet, sorg- 
hum, penicillaria, and eleusine; but maize is also grown, and here 
and there rice. In the west, especially in the Congo area, most of 
the crops to-day are introductions from America. The commonest 
is manioc, but maize and batata are also grown. Bananas are 
another important crop, and this was probably in earlier times the 
chief food in these areas. Other crops include several species of 
leguminous plants, the American pignut (Arachis hypogea), the 
oil-palm, the raphia-palm, hemp, and tobacco (the last also being 
from America). 

Large numbers of domestic animals are bred; among them the 


304 


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dog, not only for hunting purposes, but also for his flesh. Goats 
and poultry are raised both for domestic purposes and to provide 
victims for sacrifice. Sheep-rearing is not so general, and pig- 
breeding is confined to one district of West Africa. Stock-farming 
approaches agriculture in importance only where cattle are raised, 
and that is the case only in South and East Africa. In many 
districts, especially on the Zambesi, the tsetse-fly makes cattle- 
raising impossible. There are two kinds of cattle, one with a fat 
hump and small horns, resembling the Indian zebu, and the other, 
without a hump, but with gigantic horns, the songa. The principal 
cattle-farmers are, in the north, the Wahuma, the Masai (neither of 
whom are really of Bantu race), the Angoni, and, in the south, the 
Kafirs, Betshuans (Bechuans), and Herero. It is chiefly for milk 
that cattle are raised in these regions, and they are rarely killed 
for food. 

Hunting parties are preferred to individual stalking of game, and 
drives are a popular method of securing meat in large quantity. 
The game is driven into nets, or into enclosures which are sometimes 
nearly two miles long ; pitfalls, snares, and various ingenious forms 
of trap are also used. Smaller game are killed with bow and arrow 
—the Fan kill birds with poisoned arrows from a cross-bow. The 
Kafirs kill hares with the throwing-club. The hippopotamus, and 
the manatee in the Cameroons, are harpooned from boats, 

Fishing is almost universal; the only exception is the Kafirs, who 
eat no fish. The tackle includes lines, nets, crawls, and fish-spears. 
In suitable localities the waters are enclosed or dammed back. 

Some of the Bantu tribes eat human flesh. Cannibalism seems 
to have been at one time almost general among the western Bantus, 
but it occurs elsewhere also, among the Basutos, for example. 

Intoxicating liquors are in general use. They are made from the 
various species of grain and from the banana. ‘The western tribes 
drink the palm-wine manufactured from the oil-palm (Elets 
guineensis) and the wine-palm (Raphia vinifera) in preference to 
beer. Tobacco is both smoked and snuffed. Tobacco-pipes are in 
general use, and even the Asiatic hookah is used for smoking hemp. 

The huts of the Bantus are of three kinds : 

I. Rectangular huts with saddle-roof, on the west coast of the 
Cameroons as far as 10° south latitude, and throughout the Congo 
area. The assembly houses are, of course, larger than the dwellings, 
and the gable wall is left open. 


U 305 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


2. Dome-shaped or bee-hive huts, in South Africa among the 
Kafirs and the Herero, some Angola tribes, in Lunda, and in all 
the Wahuma districts. 

3. Conical-roofed huts, the roof resting on the cylindrical wall, 
among the Betshuans (Bechuans), all the Zambesi tribes, the 
Ovambo, and in South Angola, and generally throughout German 
(British) and Portuguese East Africa. 

4. There is even a fourth type, confined to the centre of what 
was German East Africa. Thisisthe ‘tembe.’ It is a rectangular 
structure with a flat roof, slightly inclined to one side and covered 
with a layer of clay. Several of these surround a common court- 
yard, into which the doors open, so that each clump of huts is a kind 
of fortified position. ! 

Household furniture is scanty. The bed is a kind of plank-bed. 
There are also stools, some like low, round tables, others like 
benches ; and there are head-rests, often daintily carved. 

European cotton has largely ousted the native materials for 
clothing, but in the east and south the commonest materials are 
still skins and leather ; in the west, vegetable fibre, principally the 
bark of various species of fig-tree. On the west coast, from the 
lower Congo to the Ogowe, and, in a large part of the central Congo 
basin, these bark materials are being replaced by textiles made 
from the fibres of the raphia-palm. The Bacuba tribes make 
splendid garments of this kind. Cotton textiles are both woven 
and worn in East Africa. The style of clothing varies very greatly. 
Children go almost always naked, and many adults do the same. 
The commonest garment is a simple loin-cloth tied round the waist. 
Skin cloaks are worn by the Kafir and Herero women, and the last- 
named wear a peculiar leather cap with erect ears. 

Painting of the body and tattooing are found among many of the 
Bantus, and the ear-lobes are perforated for ear-pegs. Perforation 
of the septum of the nose, the nostrils, or the lips is rarer. But 
some tribes wear very large lip-pegs in the upper lip. An extremely 
common practice is to disfigure the teeth, either by knocking out 
some of them entirely, or by filing the incisors to a point. The hair 
is carefully attended to and done up into elaborate coiffures, and 
an excessive amount of ornament is worn. The war headdress 
consists of multi-coloured feathers, and iron or brass rings are worn 
on arms, legs, and neck. 

There is a great deal of metalwork in iron, copper, and brass. 


306 


rite PR ORE EST Oh Serre AR Et 


All the Bantus are familiar with the smelting of iron and smithwork. 
Iron ore is found almost everywhere. The furnaces are cylindrical 
or conical clay receptacles, into which air is driven with bellows 
through holes in the bottom. The smiths’ hammers are either of 
stone or iron. The iron hammers are either simply wedge-shaped 
or fitted with handles after the European model. The anvil is 
smooth stone or a block of iron. The smiths have also their tongs 
and pincers for wirework. They make field hoes and hatchets, 
spear-points, arrow-points, swords, and knives of all kinds, and 
ornaments like rings, iron beads, chains, and bells. Copper is 
worked in Katanga, but brass is imported from Europe in the form 
of brass wire. The finest examples of the smith’s handiwork are 
found in the Congo area, among the Bacuba, Bassonga, and Baluba. 

Bantu pottery is, as a rule, of an elementary kind, but good work 
is found in districts that have been influenced by North African 
peoples. In Uganda, for example, very beautiful black ware is 
made. The potters work without a wheel. The principal articles 
made are hemispherical cooking utensils with wide mouths, big- 
bellied water-pots with narrow neck, and clay heads for tobacco- 
pipes. The water-pots are plain or marked with simple linear 
patterns. Pottery-making is women’s work, but the pipe-heads are 
always made by the men. Good wood-carving is found in many 
districts, especially in the Congo basin. Woodwork includes imple- 
ments and utensils of all kinds, stools, head-rests, bowls, and, among 
the western tribes, fetish-figures, which are frequently very gro- 
tesque. Ivory is made into ornaments, amulets, signal whistles, 
and, in Loango, entire elephant tusks are beautifully carved in 
relief. Basketwork is done by both sexes, but perhaps most of it 
is done by the men. The two commonest styles of basketry are the 
“steps and stairs’ and the ‘spiral coil.’ By the latter method, 
vessels can be made that are actually watertight, and can be used 
to hold beer or milk. Mats are also made, and are used either to 
sit on or to drape the walls of the huts. The mats made by the 
Wahuma women are famous for their fine coloured designs. 
Weaving, in the few districts where it is found, is done by the men 
only, and the same is true of the spinning of cotton yarn. Raphia 
and cotton textiles are made in various areas. In East Africa the 
horizontal loom is used ; the West Bantus work with the upright 
loom. 

With regard to the political organization of the Bantus, we have 


3°7 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


already mentioned the names of several states, like the ancient 
Congo Empire and the Lunda Empire, which comprised enormous 
stretches of territory. We have also seen that these were feudal 
states on a great scale. In other Bantu areas, on the other hand, 
there are small, independent communities ; indeed, on the west 
coast the villages form so many independent units. In these cases, 
whether the community be large or small, the organization is 
monarchical, 7.e., one individual, be he village chief, or tribal chief- 
tain, or king, or Muata Yamvo, or Muata Casembe, is at the head 
of affairs. As a rule, however, the supreme head’s power in legis- 
lation and in foreign affairs is limited by the council of the tribal 
elders, whereas in internal affairs he has practically absolute power 
over his subjects ; so that it is to all intents and purposes despotic 
rule. In the better organized states, like Lunda, Loango, Uganda, 
there is, in addition to the Great Council, a smaller Cabinet whose 
members have definite functions. There are differences of class 
and rank in the larger states which have been founded by conquest. 
In Uganda, besides the ordinary freemen, there are a higher and a 
lower class of nobles, and it is only the higher nobles who may hold 
the highest offices or become provincial governors. Slavery exists 
nearly everywhere, but is rarer among the southern Bantus. The 
slaves are mostly war-captives or people who cannot pay their 
debts. Speaking generally, the lot of the slave is not very hard. 
Certain consociations are based on territoriality, but the principle 
of blood-relationship is at the basis of sib-groups, which are often, 
though not always, totemistic in character. In the south and east 
descent is reckoned in the fathers’ line, in the west it is mostly 
matrilinear. Among the Herero and Ovambo there are two totem- 
istic organizations side by side, the one dealing with matters of 
property and inheritance on matrilinear principles, the other being 
of a religious nature and with a membership determined by male 
descent. 

Polygamy is the rule. Theoretically a man may have as many 
wives as he likes, but, as he has to buy his wives, the number is 
determined by his wealth. Most poor men have only one wife. 
King Mtesa of Uganda is said to have had 7000 wives. The first 
wife is usually the principal wife, and the others are more or 
less subordinate to her. Her sons are the privileged heirs. The 
husband usually builds a separate house for each of his wives, and 
lives with each inturn. The attainment of puberty by the youths 
308 


Geb be DG) Pisies 7 O Baer ihe BARD Ey 


is usually marked by various ceremonies, the chief one being circum- 
cision, but this operation is unknown among the tribes in the south. 
Youths approaching manhood are given into the charge of older 
men, often medicine-men, who take them to remote places in the 
forest, and there the lads live secluded from the world for a whole 
year in nudity, but smeared with white clay. Connected with these 
rites are secret societies. These seem to flourish among the western 
Bantus, and to be in many cases political in character. 

All Bantus are fond of trading. Indeed, in many tribes this is 
the chief occupation of the men, although the women too like to 
have a hand in it. Direct exchange of commodities is carried on 
everywhere between adjacent tribes, but there is also an extensive 
caravan trade, probably due to contact with Asiatic and European 
peoples. This caravan trade had serious difficulties to contend 
with. Tribes were unwilling to permit free passage of goods through 
their territories, because it deprived them of ‘middleman’s profits.’ 
For this reason the tribes on the coast long sought to prevent direct 
trade with the tribes in the interior. African trade is for the most 
part land-borne, and goods are transported almost entirely by 
porters; while tribes like the Swaheli and Wanyamwesi have 
largely adopted porterage as a trade. There is no navigation 
among the southern Bantus, and the Zambesi was long an almost 
insurmountable obstacle to the trekking hordes of Zulus. The other 
Bantus have very narrow, roughly made dug-outs. Larger boats 
of better construction are found only on the Congo. The boats of 
the Duala in the Cameroons are beautifully painted and carved. 
The best Bantu boats are those of the Waganda. Their dug-outs 
are heightened and enlarged by planks. Of course, practically all 
Bantu navigation is confined to the lakes and rivers ; even coasting 
trade is ona very small scale. The Bantu have never ventured out 
on the open sea. 

Some of them—the Zulus and the Waganda, for example—at 
one time developed considerable military organization, and in the 
past they conquered and plundered extensive areas. The military 
expeditions of the other tribes were confined to raids, and the 
casualties were as a rule not serious. The usual weapons were a 
long, light javelin and bows and arrows. At close quarters they 
used a short, heavy thrusting lance. The eastern and southern 
tribes used a mace, mostly a throwing-club, while in the Congo 
basin and the north of German East Africa the favourite weapon 


399 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


was asword. Instead of bows and arrows, the Fan used the cross- 
bow, perhaps in imitation of the Portuguese of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, and the missiles were very small poisoned arrows of wood. 
The battleaxe was used only on the Zambesi and the Congo and by 
the Fan, and the throwing-knife was not used by any of the Bantu 
tribes. 

The only defensive armour was the shield. The coat of mail used 
in the lake area was borrowed from the Sudanese. Even the 
shicld was not used by all tribes. Many of the West Bantus, and 
some tribes in the interior of German East Africa, did not carry 
shields, nor did the Wanyamwesi. In the south-east it was of 
hide ; in the north of German East Africa it was of leather ; in the 
Nile area it was of wood; in the Congo basin it was of cane. A 
stick-shield, 2.e., a long stick with a small piece of leather that pro- 
tected only the hand, was used by some tribes in the interior of 
the country. 

The villages are usually protected by a palisade and a trench; 
in some cases by a thorn-hedge. The completest type of fortifi- 
cation is found in the ‘tembes’ of East Africa, in Unyamwesi, and 
in the capitals of the Wassangu and the Wahche. 

Law, among the Bantus, is in the hands of courts consisting 
of the chief and his councillors. In the smaller tribes the village 
elders act as judges. Crimes like murder, however, are avenged by 
the relatives of those who have been murdered. With the exception 
of sorcery, most crimes, including murder, can be atoned for by the 
payment of a fine to the chief. This fine varies in amount according 
to the nature of the crime and the standing of the criminal. If the 
guilty man cannot pay his nearest relatives are held responsible. 
Where slavery exists the debtor who cannot pay is sold as a slave. 
The punishments inflicted by the tribunals are extremely cruel. 
The criminal may be beheaded, hanged, impaled, beaten or stoned 
to death, or burned alive ; or he may be mutilated by having his 
nose and ears, his penis, his hands or feet hacked off. Accuser and 
accused are allowed to produce witnesses. A favourite method of 
proof is still one or other of the ‘ordeals,’ the ordeal of fire, of 
boiling water, or of boiling oil. 

The religious conceptions of the Bantus are based on animism. 
All happenings which are not immediately and perceptibly due to 
human action are ascribed to supernatural beings, usually the 
spirits of the dead. All the Bantus believe in the existence of such 
310 


eee Or Se O bet Dib hy Ark Tibt 


spirits, able to affect the living for good or evil, able to send illness, 
death, drought, famine, or to bestow rain and fertility. The con- 
viction also prevails that such power may be possessed by living 
persons, who can change themselves into elephants and destroy 
the crops of their neighbours, or into leopards and tear men to 
pieces. Among Bantus of higher culture this belief in spirits has 
developed into a belief in divine beings, who play definite parts in 
the fates of men. In Uganda there is a large number of such 
deities, called /ubari, who are believed to live in lakes, and there 
are gods of war, a god of thunder, and a god of earthquakes. 

The Bantu cultus consists of dancing and music, sacrifice and 
vows. The sacrifices are usually food-stuffs (poultry, goats, palm- 
wine). These are either placed or poured on the graves, or are 
set down before idols of wood or clay. This idol-worship is pre- 
valent in the west. The idols are set up in diminutive houses, 
called fetish huts. On ordinary occasions the cultus is performed 
by the head of the family or by the village chief, but many tribes 
have a special priest-class, which mediates all matters between men 
and the deities. The chief task of the priests is to bring rain and to 
cure disease. Seeing that disease and lack of rain are universally 
ascribed to sorcery, the priest’s first duty is to discover the malign 
sorcerer. The person accused of sorcery or witchcraft has to 
undergo a test. Throughout West Africa as far as the Zambesi 
and Lake Nyassa the suspected person is made to drink a potion, 
a decoction of the bark of Erythrophleum guineense. If the 
suspect rejects the draught he is innocent ; if the poison takes effect 
his guilt is held as proved, and the people forthwith fall upon him 
and put him to death with cruel torture. The ‘medicine’ used by 
priests and magic-men are made up of various vegetable and animal 
ingredients. The priests are expected also to discover criminals, to 
foretell the future, and to give oracles. In casting the lots, ‘dice- 
oracles,’ ‘spider-web oracles,’ and others are used. 

The Bantu also believe in a vague kind of Supreme Being, a 
Creator, called, in the west, Nyambi; but there is no special cultus 
addressed to him, 

A Bashilange chief abolished the ancient worship of spirits among 
his people, and introduced hemp as the magical panacea. The 
adherents of this cult, who called themselves Bene Riamba (sons of 
hemp) smoked hemp at all their ceremonial gatherings. 

The dead Bantu is wrapped in skins or bark and buried in a vault, 


311 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


either outstretched or in a crouching position. A usual resting- 
place is a lateral niche in a vertical shaft. In some areas the corpse 
is allowed to decay before it is buried. In a great many cases the 
grave is dug in the dead man’s house; sometimes the house is 
thereafter abandoned, but this is by no means always the case. 
When a village chief dies the whole village is sometimes abandoned 
and a new one is erected elsewhere. We have already mentioned 
that at the death of the Muata Jamvo his capital was deserted. A 
man’s weapons and other belongings are frequently buried with 
him. Human beings are sacrificed in connexion with obsequies all 
over the Bantu area, and the death of some great chief is followed, 
in Uganda and Lunda, by human sacrifices on a terrible scale. 

3. The Tribes of the Western Sudan. In order to understand 
the grouping of the extremely varied elements found in the popu- 
lation of the Western Sudan, it is necessary to take a glance at the 
historical traditions handed down by Arabian writers of early times. 
About the beginning of the Christian era there existed in the zone 
between the desert and the Sudan proper constituted states of 
enormous size. The primary cause of this political development 
was the incursion from the north of fair-skinned Berber tribes, but 
the development had a twofold importance for the dark-skinned 
people living south of thisfrontier zone. First, these states included 
the dark-skinned Sudanese negroes and their territory ; and, second, 
these negroes gradually gained the upper hand in these states, and 
in turn extended their sway over the northern areas that had 
belonged to the Berber. The natural result of this long-continued 
intercourse between two populations that had originally little in 
common was a gradual miscegenation and assimilation, both 
somatical and cultural. The most powerful group of peoples 
who were thus enrolled in these great states were the Mande or 
Mandingo peoples. One of their branches, the Soninki, or Serra- 
colet, are said to have formed the main body of the subjugated 
population in the famous empire of Ghanata, or Gana, which before 
the beginning of our era extended north-west from the bend of the 
Niger, and was founded by fair-skinned Berber. Between 1203 
and 1204 Ghanata, which had grown to great dimensions and had 
begun to display the pomp characteristic of North Africa and 
Berber, was conquered and destroyed by the Susu, who also 
belonged to the Mande or Mandingo group. At the beginning of 
the thirteenth century the Mandingo themselves founded theempire 
312 


Pie Ri ORi he OR LET bAR LEH 


of Melle, which lay to the west of Ghanata and Timbuctoo. For a 
time Melle dominated the entire bend of the Niger and the South 
Sahara as far as the Atlantic Ocean, but the fair-skinned Fulbe 
seem to have formed a fanatical and religious aristocracy within 
the empire. There was another Mandingo Empire, Cong, between 
the mountains and the Niger valley, and still another, Gonya, or 
Ngbangye, on the west frontier of Togoland. This was founded in 
the sixteenth century, and was the limit of the eastward movement 
of the Mandingo for the time being. But the later empire of Ashanti 
and the empire of Chocossi in the north of Togoland were also 
founded by Mandingos. To this day these Mande-Mandingo tribes 
extend in a wide belt from South Senegambia, through the hinterland 
of Sierra Leone, the Pepper Coast, and the Ivory Coast as far as 
Togoland. These tribes include not only the Soninki and Susu 
already mentioned, but also the Bambarra on the Upper Senegal 
and Upper Niger, and the Vei on the west coast of modern Liberia. 
By their readiness to accept employment as labourers or porters or 
soldiers, these Vei have been of great service to European colonial 
powers. 

The former political greatness of the Mande-Mandingo peoples 
has now disappeared. Their last states, Segu on the Upper Niger 
and Samory’s, had to yield to the French colonial empire. 

Another group of peoples, no less important for the history of the 
Western Sudan, was the Sonrhai or Songhai. The founders and 
the first kings of this state—it was founded in 1010, and lay south 
of Timbuctoo—are said to have been Arabs from Yemen, but the 
people are reported to have been dark—in any case, the negro 
element has from the first been the strongest. About the year 1300 
Sonrhai became a dependency of Melle, which was then at the 
zenith of its power. About the end of the fifteenth century Sonrhai 
overthrew Melle and again became independent. It conquered 
Timbuctoo, and became the most powerful state in the Sudan. 
It had taken the place of Melle, just as Melle had previously sup- 
planted the ancient Ghanata. At the time of the Portuguese 
expeditions, Mohammed Askia, ruler of Sonrhai, was extending his 
conquests from the centre of Hausa to the Atlantic Ocean. In 1589 
Sonrhai was conquered by the Moroccans, and continued to be a 
province of the North African empire till the eighteenth century, 
when the Tuareg came in swarms from the north and poured over 
the country. 


Rts 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


The Sonrhai language, which is still spoken in Timbuctoo and 
Assuad, was at one time widely distributed. It was spoken even 
in Mossi, to the south of the bend of the Niger—a kingdom often 
attacked, but never subjugated, by its neighbours. 

Another negro people of the Western Sudan who can look back to 
a once powerful empire are the Yolof or Wolof, between Senegal 
and Gambia. They are very dark-skinned. When the Portuguese 
landed here in 1446 the Yolof Empire was of great extent and power, 
but in the sixteenth century, owing to wars with the Fulbe-Fulahs, 
it was broken up into several petty negro states, of which Cayor 
was the strongest. 

Special ethnological interest attaches to the states on the Slave 
and Gold Coasts—to Ashanti, Dahomey, and the ancient Benin, 
east of Yoruba. The inhabitants of Ashanti belong linguistically 
to the Chi tribes, of which the Ashanti and the Fanti are the most 
important. The Ewe, who form the majority of the people of 
Dahomey, also occupy large parts of Togoland in village com- 
munities. The inhabitants of Benin were called Bini. Ashanti 
and Dahomey possess a high material culture. The population are 
clever, fond of ostentation, and were long notorious for their 
fanaticism in war and for the dreadful slaughter of prisoners and 
slaves. The number thus massacred to celebrate the accession of 
a new king is said to have varied from 4000 to 10,000. In both 
kingdoms to-day these things have ceased. Ashanti has long been 
a British, and Dahomey a French, colony, and under the new peace- 
ful conditions both countries have increased in population and 
prosperity. Great interest was aroused by the discovery in Benin 
of numerous antiquities, many of which were brought to England 
in 1897. Most of them were cast bronzes, decorated with sculptures 
depicting scenes from Benin negro life of the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries. The first Portuguese voyagers at the end of the 
fifteenth century were received in a friendly manner by the Benin 
kings of that time, and the relations between the country and 
Europeans have all along been peaceful, so that it is not surprising 
that Benin art was considerably affected by European influences. 
But whether the cast metalwork done by the process of the ‘lost 
mould’ (see p. 318) is really due to European influence is a 
question to which as yet no decisive answer can be given. 

In addition to the tribes already mentioned, there are many 
smaller tribes in the Western Sudan, e.g., the Kru, or Grebo, on the 


314 


Teel BOP PSs @ hier bee AIR TE 


east coast of Liberia. These people have been of great service to 
Europeans both as labourers and as clever sailors in the dangerous 
surf on the West Coast. In the former German Cameroons 
Protectorate the chief native tribes are the warlike Bali and the 
Bamum. The kingdom of Bamum is well known, owing to the 
outstanding personality of its ruler Nyoga. He gave a willing 
welcome to European culture, established home industries, en- 
couraged a new style of building, and even introduced a new 
system of writing. 

Above this negro layer in the Western Sudan there are other 
elements, of varying density but of great extent, which are really 
foreign to this area. They are of Hamitic origin, but they have in 
course of time become more or less assimilated to the negro popu- 
lation. We mean the Hausa. They are typical traders. Their 
centre is the territory between the Niger and Bornu, but they have 
spread over the whole Sudan, deep into the forests of the Cameroons 
and west to the coast. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 
these Hausa played the same political réle as the Fulbe, who after- 
wards superseded them. They established powerful empires. The 
first Hausa states were Cano and Catsena, which were afterwards 
annexed to the Fulah state of Socoto. Their capital, Cano, was for 
a time the most important city of the Western Sudan, and, even at 
the present day, is an important trading centre. 

It was in the Mandingo territory that the Fulbe first became 
known to European travellers, under the name of Fulah (‘yellow’ 
or ‘brown’). They are an important element in the population of 
the Western Sudan. There are several centres where they are 
specially numerous, but they are present in great numbers through- 
out the whole area and are predominantly stock-farmers. As their 
language is akin to the Somali speech, they are included among the 
Hamites. With their light brown complexion, wavy hair, and high, 
straight nose, the pure Fulbe closely resemble the Berber of North 
Africa. 

There were Fulbe even in the Melle Empire and in the later 
Sonrhai; but there they were kept in subjection and did not 
attain great power. The centres where they began to develop 
strength were the Fulah states on the Lower Senegal. There they 
formed, and still form, the majority of the population. As early 
as the sixteenth century large numbers of them migrated eastward 
and rose to the position of an important people east of the Niger. 


315 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


In the beginning of the seventeenth century Fulah tribes appeared 
in Bagirmi, and spread even farther south, and they now occupy 
the Benue area in dense numbers. It was only in the beginning 
of the nineteenth century, however, that the Fulbe became an 1m- 
portant people in the eastern part of the Western Sudan. In 1806 
the Sheik Othman dan Fodio conquered the Hausa states and 
established a great feudal empire from the Niger to the uplands 
of South Adamawa. The eastern capital was Socoto, that of the 
western part was Gando. One of the most powerful vassal states 
was Adamawa (with its capital Yola), which was the largest part 
of the former German Cameroons Protectorate. 

In view of this complexity of population in the Western Sudan, 
to which must be added a considerable Arab element, any account 
of the culture of the region must be given in outline. 

Speaking generally, the most important element in the economic 
life is agriculture, but there are also many tribes who confine them- 
selves to stock-farming. Among these are the Fulbe, who lost a 
large part of their stock in 1890 from rinderpest. In the hinterland 
of the Guinea Coast there are still some primitive tribes who are 
content with hunting, fishing, and gathering. In the grass areas 
the chief crops are beans, peas, and maize. In the north, in the 
bend of the Niger as far as Cong, there has long been grown a species 
of rice, as well as wheat and barley. In the forests of the south the 
chief crops are manioc, bananas, pignuts, and yams. Other crops 
include cotton, indigo, tobacco, and cola-nut. The commonest 
species of stock raised is cattle. In the grasslands on the Niger 
(Habbé and Mochi) the zebu and the Moroccan ox are bred. On 
the frontiers of the Sahara there are numerous herds of camels. 
Horse-breeding is practically universal over the entire Sudan. The 
principal breeds are the Mandingo horse, which is probably of 
Berber origin, and the Sonrhai horse, which is probably an Arab. 
In the Mohammedan districts the ass is an important beast of 
burden. 

Wherever Oriental Islamic civilization has penetrated, it has 
brought with it a more elaborate preparation of food, It has intro- 
duced its meat foods, its dessert dishes, its ‘kuskus,’ 7.e., dried meat 
with an addition of small spheres of steamed flour. In the negro 
areas culinary processes are simpler. Animals of the herd are 
never slaughtered, except on sacrificial occasions, and meat is 
seldom eaten. On the other hand, large quantities of alcoholic 


316 


Pi eePPORE ES OR2 TER er AR-LH 


beer are made from the various cereals, and palm-wines are also 
manufactured. 

The settlements and dwellings, of course, vary greatly among 
the various populations. At one end of the scale there are large 
populous cities like Cano, Cong, Bidda (the capital of Nupe), and at 
the other end the hamlets of the tribes who are at the early stages 
of tillage. The population of the larger cities is so mixed that all 
kinds of architecture are found in one and the same city. 

The principal house-types in the Western Sudan are : 

1. The flat-roofed, rectangular, clay house. This seems un- 
doubtedly to go back to northern influence. For defensive pur- 
poses these dwellings in former times were frequently sunk in the 
ground ; to-day they are only half sunk or built on the level, and 
consist of several stories. This is the commonest type of house in 
the bend of the Niger (Habbé) among the eastern Mandingo as far 
as Cong and Susu. 

2. The circular cabin with conical roof and cylindrical clay walls. 
This is also a common type from the Mossi area to that of the Susu. 
Even the Mossi cities consist of these circular cabins. 

3. The rectangular cabin of wood with gabled roof, and the 
rectangular clay house with pyramid roof. This is the usual type 
found in the forest districts along the Guinea coast. The ancient 
palaces in Ashanti consisted of a multitude of such houses built in 
groups. 

4. Pile dwellings—rectangular, wooden houses, built on piles over 
water. This is the usual type in the lagoons of Dahomey. 

5. The beehive cabins of the nomadic Fulbe—a circular frame- 
work of wood covered with brushwood. 

The bed is either a low bedstead on four feet, with a cover of 
slats (Mandingo, Ashanti), or a clay bench encircling the interior 
(French Guinea), or a pediment of clay (Togo), or the ground itself. 
In the south wooden stools are used as seats, and wooden head-rests 
are used in Dahomey. 

Among the Mohammedans clothing is, of course, more complete 
than among the heathen. The men wear an upper shirt and cloak 
(Habbé), sometimes also hose and boots (Mossi) or sandals. The 
cap or turban is indispensable. The Mohammedan women wear 
an apron and a cloth over the breasts. The pagan tribes, on the 
other hand, are scantily clad. Among many negro tribes on 
the coast the men go quite naked. Some wear only a cover for the 


317 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


penis. The women wear an apron of bast, sometimes a mere bunch 
of leaves. The Fulah nomads retain to this day their ancient style 
of leather clothing. Rain hats, made of plaited palm-leaves, are 
worn on the coast of Guinea. 

Clasps and buckles of iron, brass, copper, gold, or silver are worn 
on arms, ankles, and neck. Painting and tattooing are practically 
universal. The Habbé, Cru, and others tattoo themselves in colour ; 
the Vei tattoo themselves in scars, which are frequently tribal 
badges. The teeth are filed to a point, the nostrils are perforated, 
as are the lips and the septum of the nose (Mossi). Boys and 
youths are usually circumcised, even by tribes other than Moham- 
medan—the Ewe, for example. 

The forms of industry are also very varied. Work in iron is 
found all over the area, but it is actually practised only by a special 
class of men—experts at the trade. These individuals, who form 
a class held in high esteem, are usually negroes—even where the 
population is mainly Hamitic. Another class famous for their iron- 
work are the Mandingos. In Gurma, Togoland, and Yoruba there 
are large ironworks, with furnaces from nine to twelve feet high. 
The type of smithwork and the tools—hammer, anvil, tongs, 
bellows, and perforated iron plate for making wire—resemble those 
used by the Bantu negroes. One form of metalwork, in which some 
of the Sudanese tribes surpass the Bantu, is brass-founding by the 
process of the ‘lost mould.’ The clay mould was fitted over a wax 
model, and, after the metal had been poured in, the mould had to 
be shattered. This process is still followed in Ashanti, and by 
some tribes in Togoland; but the best-known work done by this 
process is that from ancient Benin. Many examples of it are now 
in the museums. 

The Ashanti goldwork also is wellknown. Splendid examples are 
found in the animal figures and gold weights made by these people. 
The goldsmith and filigree work of the north (Habbé) have evidently 
been affected by Mediterranean influence. 

The pottery in the West Sudan is mostly done by the men. 
Carving, both in wood and ivory, was highly developed in ancient 
Benin ; good work in weaving and dyeing was done by the Hausa, 
and leatherwork by the Mandingo. 

Wars, expeditions of conquest, and raids have in all ages been 
frequent in the West Sudan. We have already seen how great em- 
pires succeeded each other in the hegemony over wide areas, and 


318 


Poche OL biog Ober beg hAR DE 


how, from the beginning of the last century, the victorious Fulbe 
poured over the Hausa states and extensive negro areas deep into 
the Cameroons. The decisive factor in such conquests was the 
well-trained horsemen, whose onset the foot armies of the native 
tribes could not withstand. Slave-raids were also numerous and 
carried out on a great scale, and by this means the northern 
peoples obtained from the south the necessary labour, depopula- 
ting large areas. 

At the present day firearms have been introduced into many 
regions, but there are tribes in the interior who have remained 
faithful to their original weapons. Bows and poisoned arrows are 
still used by the Fulbe, Mandingo, and Mossi. The bow is either 
the usual so-called Asiatic bow or the round bow. Slings are used 
by the Ashanti and Mandingo and in Liberia. Lances and maces, 
clubs with metal heads, are in general use. Swords are used by the 
Fulbe and Mandingo, and they were in former times a common 
weapon in Ashanti and Dahomey. The national weapons of the 
Fulbe are the battleaxe and the dagger, attached to the wrist by 
a leather ring. In the north the shields are of leather; the shields 
of the southern peoples are of all shapes and made of all kinds of 
material. In the North Cameroons mail is the defensive armour. 
It is made of buffalo hide or crocodile-skin, and the Mohammedan 
tribes use iron mail and helmets similar to those used in Europe in 
the Middle Ages. Among the Hausa and Fulbe steed and rider 
were covered with thick padding, and the same defence was used 
by the Canuri in the Central Sudan. In the north the style of 
houses was largely determined by defensive requirements, and 
each group of buildings was a kind of fortress. Some entire dis- 
tricts could be called fortresses. In Bamum in the Cameroons 
the whole state is encircled by ramparts and trenches from fifteen 
to twenty kilometres in length, so that, even during a siege, the 
people can till their fields inside their fortifications. 

The principal external trade is that carried on by caravans. 
Water-borne trade is, in comparison, unimportant. There are also 
periodical or fixed markets, and this market trade is a very import- 
ant part of economic life. Payment is made in cowrie-shells, Maria 
Theresa dollars, and cotton goods. 

The various trades, in the cities and markets, are organized in 
guilds, after the European manner of the Middle Ages. 

With regard to social organization, we have seen at one end of the 


319 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


scale huge states like Ghanata, Melle, Sonrhai, Ashanti, Dahomey, 
Benin, Hausa, and Fulbe, and, at the other, small independent 
village communities. Politically, the kingdoms of Ashanti and 
Dahomey were cruel despotisms, in which the kings, in the midst 
of an imposing entourage and surrounded bya numerous bodyguard 
of warriors (in Dahomey the bodyguard was composed of women), 
exercised a tyrannical rule over their subjects. 

The various trades and occupations have developed into class 
distinctions, and in the north these have hardened into actual 
castes. There are chiefs, priests, musicians, leatherworkers, smiths, 
and so on, as well as fishermen and hunters, and the duties and 
privileges of each are definitely prescribed. 

Side by side with these class distinctions, there is also an or- 
ganization based on blood-relationship. There are sib-groups of a 
totemistic character, especially on the Niger and in the hinterland 
of the coast of Guinea. Then there are age-classes, among the 
Habbé, Cru, and Togoland tribes, for example. The Habbé 
unmarried youths and girls live outside the village, and have an 
organization of their own. In connexion with these age-classes 
many of the Mande tribes and the Guinea Coast tribes have a 
peculiar system of secret societies, and these are recruited from the 
youths and girls who attain the age of manhood and womanhood. 

From the earliest times outside influences of various kinds have © 
affected the intellectual ideas of the West Sudan peoples. Islam 
entered the country at an early period, and wherever the population 
adopted that faith they, of course, lost their originalideas. Chris- 
tianity too reached the people, and a large number of the ideas that 
then prevailed in the Christian world were conveyed to the peoples 
of the Sudan. Since the time of the Portuguese discoveries these 
Christian ideas gradually spread inward from the coast and modified 
the native conceptions. At the same time there are still many 
tribes, especially on the coast, which have adopted neither Islam 
nor Christianity, but have preserved their native religious views 
and cultus. Speaking broadly, these resemble those of the Bantu 
negroes. As among the Bantus, masked dances form a large part 
of the cultus. 

In many places there is an organized priesthood, and the members 
of that class have a very powerful influence. The cultus includes 
human sacrifices and cannibalism. In Ashanti and Dahomey the 
braves display war trophies such as the skull of the enemy they 
320 








NoOBLEMAN’S HOUSE IN ADAMAWA 
Western Sudan. From a photograph in the Ethnological Museum, Berlin 











CAVE-DWELLINGS IN LAS PALMAS 320 
Photo Nanson 


PLATE 78 








MEN’s HOUSE OF THE BAMUM 


Western Sudan 
Photo B. Ankermann 








COURTYARD IN DAHOMEY 321 


Western Sudan 
Photo Preil 


pi bee, GO) 2 ie hi O Bo DEL BARC 


have slain. The Sudan Negroes have the same burial customs as 
the Bantus, and wrap up the corpse before burying it. 

The Vei tribes in Liberia have invented a kind of syllabic writing. 
We have already referred to a parallel invention by Nyoga, ruler of 
Bamum. 

4. The Tribes of the Eastern Sudan. The history of the 
Eastern Sudan up to the end of the nineteenth century is made up 
of the changeful fortunes of four states, Bornu, Bagirmi, Wadai, 
and Darfur. In all four the population is very mixed, being com- 
posed of Arabs on the one hand, and all kinds of cross-breeds on 
the other. The larger part of the population in Wadai, and the 
most important part of that of Darfur, is Arab, whereas in Bagirmi 
and Bornu the Arab element is less prominent and the rest of the 
population is even more mixed than in the other two. 

Bornu is the oldest state in Eastern Sudan. As early as the 
tenth century a native prince in Canem welded into one state the 
population consisting of Canuri, Canemba, Zoghava, Teda, and 
Arab-Berber elements. After Islam had gained a firm footing in 
Canem in the twelfth century it gradually spread northward over 
the desert tribes. The state waged war in the succeeding centuries 
with varying success against the invading Negro tribe Sso, till the 
kings of Canem were compelled to transfer their seat to Bornu 
farther south. Here they again rose to great power, and by the end 
of the fifteenth century they extended their dominion across the 
Niger and over Canem—at times, indeed, as far east as Egypt. 
The best-known of the rulers of Bornu was Sheik Omar, who reigned 
from 1835 onward. It was he who came into touch with the 
travellers Barth, Vogel, Nachtigal, and Rohlfs. In 1894 the state 
was conquered by Arabs, and the territory was subsequently par- 
titioned between Britain and Germany. The chief trading centre 
of Bornu is the capital, Cuca. It owes this importance to its 
position at the south end of the great road from Tripoli to the Sudan. 

Adjoining Bornu on the east is Bagirmi. It is not so old as 
Bornu, and only goes back to the sixteenth century. It was 
founded by a conquering people, who, under their leader Kenga, 
came from Sennar on the Upper Nile and invaded the territory 
which till then had been occupied by Bulala tribes mixed with 
Fulbe and Arabs. At the end of the fifteenth century the Fulbe 
were driven from the capital, Massenga, and Islam became the 
state religion. Bagirmi attained the zenith of its power in the 

x a2 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


seventeenth century, but disputes arose regarding the succession, and 
these were followed by a decline of its power and by inroads of its 
neighbours. In 1870 the Sultan of Wadai occupied its capital, and 
thereafter Bagirmi became dependent partly on Wadai and partly 
on Bornu. At present both Wadai and Bagirmi are under French 
protection. At Nachtigal’s time three-fourths of the population of 
Bagirmi consisted of a mixed people, the Bagirmi, and the remaining 
fourth was composed of Arabs, Bornu, Cuca, Bulala, and Fulbe. 

In its present Mohammedan-Arab form Wadai only goes back 
to the seventeenth century. At that time the Mohammedan people 
Maba, under their leader Abd-el-Kerim, defeated the Fundshur, who 
are said to have come from the Nile, and were heathen and adver- 
saries of Islam. In the beginning of the nineteenth century the 
Wadai conducted successful campaigns against the neighbouring 
states of Darfur, Bornu, and Bagirmi, and their dominion now 
extended from Bornu to Kordofan, 2.e., over most of the Eastern 
Sudan. It was at Wara, the capital, that Eduard Vogel, the 
traveller, was killed by the Wadai. Later, in 1863, Abeshr became 
the capital. The Maba tribe are still the dominant people. At 
the beginning of the twentieth century the French began to make 
their hitherto merely nominal dominion over the Wadai a reality. 

The first masters of Darfur seem to have been the Fundshur, who, 
as has been said, were the original rulers of the Wadai. Their power, 
however, was shared with several families of Fur. At the beginning 
of the seventeenth century the state became powerful under 
Soliman Solon, but it was not till the eighteenth century that Islam 
was introduced. Wars with Wadai favoured the latter, but Darfur 
remained an independent sultanate till 1874 when the well-known 
slave-dealer Zebehr Pasha annihilated the Darfur army and the 
country fell to Egypt. In 1884 Darfur and the Egyptian Sudan 
were occupied by the Mahdists, and they belong to-day to the 
British-Egyptian sphere of interest. 

The levelling influence of Mohammedan culture has, of course, 
swept away much of the original civilization of these four Sudan 
states. The civilization is largely that of the Middle Ages, which 
was introduced after North Africa fell into the hands of the 
Caliphs. 

The largest crops raised in the Sudan are beans, millet, and maize. 
Melons and pignuts, dum and date-palms are also grown in great 
numbers. The only spice produced is cola-nut. 
ae: 


bee DOR SO heel ER EEA Reb Eb 


There is also a great deal of stock-farming. In Canem, and on 
the desert frontiers, camels are bred. Farther south short-horned 
cattle are raised. The long-horned Yuri cattle are bred only in 
Bornu. All the Mohammedan states have horses, but these are 
chiefly bred in Bornu. Sheep-farming is an important industry 
round Lake Chad; the ass is mostly raised in Mohammedan areas. 
Fishing on a large scale is carried on on Lake Chad. 

Round Lake Chad, in Wadai and Darfur, the usual house is the 
quadrangular, flat-roofed, clay house. It is divided into quite a 
large number of apartments, and is usually surrounded by a strong 
enclosing wall. The rural people of Wadai and Darfur live in 
beehive huts, like those of the Fulbe. The round hut with conical 
roof is also quite common. In Bornu each family owns a whole 
group of such huts. The main dwelling is conjoined with the 
women’s huts and store-rooms into one spacious structure, and 
this, surrounded by walls of mats or clay, contains a court-yard for 
domestic occupations. In the Chad district this court-yard is 
always provided with a shade overhead. 

As in Western Sudan, the towns are fortified by walls, towers, 
and gates. 

In the areas that have been Mohammedanized the people clothe 
the whole body with cotton materials. Only the Fulbe have 
retained the ancient skin clothing. Male dress is largely that of 
the desert tribes. A stylish dress is the tobe, with rich embroidery, 
and in Bornu people who wish to be thought fashionable wear 
several of them at one time. Fashionable dress includes daintily 
ornamented leather shoes. The children go naked. Young girls 
wear a leather apron with fringes. Ornament is either imported 
from abroad or copied from foreign models. Jewellery is made of 
precious metals, coral, agate, amber, and porcelain. The orna- 
ments worn include necklets and anklets, a crescent-shaped, silver 
hair ornament, corals in the nose, ear-rings and finger-rings. The 
Wadai wear sets of ivory rings. Like the desert tribes, the men 
prefer bracelets of stone. 

Industry is well organized into crafts and trades. Smiths are 
everywhere. Tanning materials are imported, and splendid leather- 
work is made. Weaving and dyeing are also carried on. Bows 
and arrows are not much used as military weapons, except among 
the Fulbe. The principal weapons are the flint-lock, spear, lance, 
swords, and throwing-clubs with thickened end. The Fulbe still 


323 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


use battleaxe and spiked mace. The usual defensive armour is 
the shield—round leather shields in Bornu, a wooden frame stuffed 
with leather in Wadai—ring-mail, padded mail for horse and rider, 
and padded helmets. 

The state is organized as a feudal system, and among the Bornu 
and Wadai there is a highly developed official hierarchy. Slave- 
trading was carried on extensively in all four states, and this was 
fed by slave-raids and revolting cruelties against the southern 
negroes. 

5. The Tribes of the North-east. Africa from Suez to beyond 
the southern tropical line is an area of reciprocal relations between 
Asia and Africa, with a strong admixture of Mediterranean in- 
fluences. These foreign elements of culture, and the influence of 
ancient Egypt, cannot be described here. These elements really 
belong to the history of European and Asiatic civilization, and not 
to ethnology. 

The area with which we are now concerned is the region of the 
Nile from its remotest sources to its mouth, and includes the coast 
region east of that river. Leaving out of account all historical 
invasions and foreign influences, the population is of a very mixed 
kind, and the political and cultural differences are very varied. 
The area includes states like the empire of ancient Egypt, gigantic 
in size and including part of Asia, and others like the empire of the 
Mahdi, which was founded in the latter half of the nineteenth 
century and rapidly captured the largest. part of the Egyptian 
Sudan. It extended its dominion to the southernmost sources of 
the Nile and as far west as Darfur. There is also the empire of 
Abyssinia. But the area includes, besides these larger states, other 
tribes, which, although they were at times incorporated with the 
larger states, are in culture on a level with the tribes farther south. 
These are, first, the tribes in the east horn of Africa, like the Somali 
and Galla, and, second, the so-called Negritoes on the western 
affluents of the Nile. Third, there are the tribes on the water- 
shed between the Welle and the White Nile, the Mangbattu and 
Nyam-Nyam, whose racial affinities are still unknown. In view 
of the heterogeneous nature of the population of North-east 
Africa, it is hardly possible to give any comprehensive description 
of the civilization, and we shall therefore take the various parts 
separately. 

The ancient Egyptians, originally an Hamitic people, whose 


324 


ela tel Ele pow © lies ET Hee BA RT Et 


history, thanks to the dry desert air, can be traced back in the 
splendidly preserved monuments as far as the thirty-second century 
B.C., were an agricultural people whose territory was originally con- 
fined to the long Nile Valley. Its fertility is due to the periodic 
inundations of the Nile: the country is almost rainless. Even in 
remote times the agricultural area was greatly increased by arti- 
ficial irrigation, canals, water-wheels, and other contrivances ; just 
as, on the other hand, artificial mounds for habitations were erected 
in the low lands exposed to the inundations. One of the most 
famous examples is the irrigation works of Fayum, a system of 
canals constructed under the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty, con- 
necting Lake Meeris with the Nile. 

Traces of the life of ancient Egypt are still to be found among the 
fellahs of the Nile Valley, and especially among the Copts. To this 
day there may be seen among them men and women who bring to 
mind the statues and paintings of ancient Egypt. To this day the 
fellah tills his durra fields in the inundation area, and to this day 
the ancient water-wheels can still be seen in use. To be sure, even 
this nucleus of ancient native life has not remained unaffected by 
foreign invasion, for again and again the whole empire fell under 
foreign dominion. As early as 2000 B.c. the Hyksos, a warlike 
pastoral tribe of Semitic descent, invaded the empire from the 
north-east, conquered Lower Egypt, and dominated the whole land 
from the ancient royal city of Memphis. The native kings of 
Thebes succeeded, after many efforts, in shaking off the foreign 
yoke and driving the Hyksos to Syria. From their new capital 
these kings raised the country to new prosperity, until it attained 
its zenith under the famous Pharaoh, Rameses II, about the year 
1300 B.c. At this time the conquests of Egypt’s rulers extended 
far into Asia, beyond the Euphrates and Tigris, as well as to Nubia, 
and south as far as Dongola. The Egyptian Sudan was also over- 
run, and the negro dwellers there, the Cushites, were brought under 
Egyptian rule. The land of Cush had an Egyptian governor. A 
centre of ancient Egyptian culture was planted in Nubia, in the 
priestly state of Meroe, between Atbara and the Nile ; and when in 
730 B,c. the Ethiopian king Sabaco conquered Egypt and made the 
capital Sais his residence these Nubians had already adopted 
Egyptian culture to such an extent that the half century of Ethio- 
pian domination hardly affected them. When the native princes 
once more succeeded in shaking off the foreign yoke, and when 


a 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


Psammetichus, with the aid of Carian and Ionian mercenaries, had 
restored the decayed empire, these mercenaries were settled on the 
Perusian arm of the Nile, and shortly afterward Hellenic and 
Pheenician elements were also incorporated into the ancient life. 
After the battle of Perusium in 525 B.c. Egypt became a Persian 
province, and after Alexander the Great had destroyed the Persian 
Empire Egypt experienced another brilliant era of science and art 
under the fostering care of the Ptolemies. In A.D. 30 it became 
a Roman province, and soon afterward Christianity began to 
permeate the population. 

An event fraught with great consequences for Egypt was its 
conquest by the Arabs in the middle of the seventh century. 
Islam replaced Christianity, and Arabic became the language of the 
country. Arab dominion was fora time restricted to Egypt proper. 
South of the line that divides Upper Egypt from Nubia, the king- 
dom of Aloa (or Nuba) still remained Christian and withstood all 
Arab attacks, and until the thirteenth century the Popes sent 
bishops to Dongola. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
however, this region was also invaded. The negro Fundshur, under 
their chief Amru, invaded Southern Nubia, and established a great 
empire with a capital at Sennar. This Negro empire, to which the 
petty Nubian-Arab princes paid tribute, continued to exist till the 
end of the eighteenth century. 

Egypt proper came into the hands of the Turks as far back as 
1517, but it was only after the nineteenth century had begun that 
the Turks succeeded in extending their power over Nubia and the 
adjacent countries. Nubia was conquered, and Khartum founded. 
Sennar, the Shilluc country, the whole Egyptian Sudan, and, later, 
Kordofan were annexed, and by 1876 the whole Upper Nile as far 
as Lake Albert was made an equatorial province of Egypt. But 
this Egyptian dominion was not destined to last long. In 1881 
Mohammed Ahmed, who had been a high Egyptian official, but 
who had left the service and become leader of the opposition and 
chief of the slave-traders, revolted openly, seized Kordofan, com- 
pletely annihilated at Kashgil, south of El Obeid, the Egyptian army 
sent against him, and in the following years he took the name of 
the Mahdi, the new prophet, and irresistibly extended his sway over 
the rest of the Egyptian Sudan. The territory east of the Nile also 
was soon overrun by his supporters, the Mahdists, in some places as 
far as the coast. From 1884 onward only the equatorial province 


326 


Pie REO Peis Oh CHE EAR LH 


under Emin Pasha remained in the possession of Egypt, and even 
Emin found himself obliged to yield to Stanley’s advice and retire 
southward. 

The shock which Turkish dominion in Egypt suffered by the loss 
of the southern territory and by the simultaneous rising of Arabi 
Pasha had nearly destroyed the independence of the state. The 
Khedive, or viceroy, fell under British influence, and Britain soon 
had in her hands the finances and the army. This made her the 
mistress of the country, and before long she had extended her power 
over the Mahdi state also. 

We shall now take a short glance at the present population of 
this area. There are four principal groups. First, the Fellah, the 
descendants of the ancient Egyptians, including the Copts. Among 
these agriculture is the chief industry, and it is still carried on in the 
ancient way. Second, the Nubians—a mixture of Hamitic, Semitic, 
and Negro elements. In the south, in Sennar, the Negrito popu- 
lation forms the majority of the people, the chief tribe being the 
Fundshur. As has been said, these were the dominant element in 
the Eastern Sudan in the sixteenth century. They are chiefly 
stock-farmers, but the Nubians in the Nile Valley have taken to 
agriculture after the Egyptian fashion. Durra (Sorghum vulgare), 
beans, maize, wheat, barley, and lupinesare the main crops. Third, 
the Arabs, who, under the name of Bedouin, inhabit the desert 
areas on both sides of the Nile, and, being nomadic herdsmen, form 
a strong contrast to the settled, agricultural fellah of the Nile Valley. 
Two outstanding tribes are the Hadendoa and the Bisharin. 
Fourth, the Negroes of the Upper Nile, the so-called Nile Negroes or 
Nilots, inhabit the whole territory watered by the affluents of the 
White Nile from the west shore of Lake Albert and the east corner 
of Lake Victoria up to 12° north latitude. The Shuli group are 
perhaps the most widely distributed, the principal branch being 
the Shilluc on the Sobat. Another important tribe is the Dinka, 
occupying the whole angle between Bahr el Gazal and Bahr el 
Jebel. Physically they are among the tallest men in the world, and 
the best stock-farmers in Africa. There are also the Bari on the 
Upper Nile, the Bongo and Madi west of the White Nile. They are 
splendid smiths, and are known by the heavy iron jewellery which 
they wear. 

The economic life of all these Nilotic peoples is centred in stock- 
raising, but the Bari and a few other tribes follow agriculture. One 


347 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF] MANKEN 


peculiar feature common to them all is the unusual lack of clothing ; 
many of the men go absolutely naked. 

Along with the Nile negroes we take two other peoples, found on 
the watershed between the White Nile and the Welle. The classical 
account given of them by Georg Schweinfurth and Wilhelm Junker 
has made them well known. They are the Nyam-Nyam and the 
Mangbattu, or Monbuttu. Their fair complexion and their fair 
hair prove that they are not pure negroes. Despite their compara- 
tively high material civilization, there is probably more cannibalism 
among them, especially among the Mangbattu, than anywhere in 
the world. In Schweinfurth’s time human flesh was their principal 
food. The king of the Monbuttu is said to have had little children 
for his dinnerevery day. Before the end of the nineteenth century, 
however, the ruthless conduct of Nubian slave-dealers and slave- 
hunters had changed most of the native habits in these areas. 

The oldest existing state in Africa is Abyssinia. Although the 
older stratum of the present population of Abyssinia is Hamitic, 
Semitic elements were introduced at a very early date from South 
Arabia. Jews also came from Arabia, and, indeed, they were the 
dominant element from the ninth to the thirteenth century. The 
sacred, ecclesiastical language of Abyssinia to-day, the ancient 
dialect, Geez, resembles very closely the Himyarite tongue of South 
Arabia, and it is also akin to the dialects of Tigre, Amhara, and 
Shoa. The connexions with South Arabia must have been at times 
very close, for about a.p. 525 Abyssinia conquered South Arabia 
by force of arms. In the fourth century Christianity was intro- 
duced into Abyssinia—it is said, by two Christian captives from the 
west. The Abyssinian Christian Church came into touch with the 
Coptic Church in Egypt, and it is from the Coptic Patriarch in 
Cairo that the Patriarch in Abyssinia, the Abuna, still receives his 
consecration. Greek influence also reached Abyssinia in the first 
centuries of the Christian era. At that time and down to the 
Roman period the kingdom was called Axum after its capital. 
Later, and down to modern times, it was frequently called Habash 
or Habesh. 

Down to the middle of the eighteenth century the whole of 
Abyssinia was ruled by the Negus Negesti, the King of Kings, who 
had governors, ras, in each province. In 1831 the kingdom was 
broken up into the three states, Tigre, Amhara, and Shoa, and, later, 
Godyam and Kaffa were added. Thereafter the Galla invaded 
328 


Pet pe te Pie ae O acl Eh bebe A Rel Ef 


the country from the south and held it in subjection. In 1853 
Theodorus succeeded in uniting once more the whole kingdom. 
He was succeeded by the Negus John, and in his reign there were 
numerous wars with Egypt, the Galla, the Italians, and the Mahdists. 
Then followed disputes with Emperor Menelik, the then Prince of 
Shoa and Kaffa. After John’s death Menelik raised himself after a 
long struggle to the throne and the rank of the King of Kings. 

Abyssinian life has many points of resemblance to that of Arabia. 
The men wear Arab dress. The best houses are of stone. The 
churches, some of them very large, are hewn out of the rock. The 
smaller huts are of straw, arranged in circles surrounded by thorn- 
hedges. 

By the treaty of 1889 the Italian Government became responsible 
for all the foreign affairs of Abyssinia, and the latter is now practi- 
cally an Italian Protectorate. 

In the east horn of Africa there are at present three tribes: 
(1) The Danakil or Afar along the Gulf of Aden; (2) the Somali, 
inhabiting the whole eastern area south to the River Tana; (3) the 
Galla, or Oromo, the most highly civilized of the three, inhabiting 
the western parts and the southern uplands of Abyssinia. The 
Danakil and Somali are descended from Hamitic tribes who lived 
on the shore of the Red Sea as early as Strabo’s time. There was 
a considerable state here in the thirteenth century, but it soon was 
conquered by Abyssinia. 

All these tribes are stock-farmers, and, apart from that, their life 
is made up of continual wars and raids against each other. Only 
the Galla have taken to agriculture, which they carry on along with 
stock-breeding. The huts of the Somali are semicircular, with flat 
or conical roof, and are easily transportable. Those of the Galla 
have conical roofs, and the villages are fortified by thorn-hedges, 
walls, and palisades. The present-day clothing is usually of cotton, 
but in earlier days a loin-cloth and a cloak of skin were the usual 
costume. The principal weapons are lances and daggers, and the 
round, leather shield is the usual defensive armour. 

In these regions Islam is only nominally the religion, but in other 
respects influences from outside have deeply affected the people. 
The strongest of such influences are those of ancient Semitic culture 
and of Monophysite Christianity. 

6. The Sahara Tribes. The principal tribes in the Sahara are 
the Tuareg and the Tibbu, or Teda, the former in the east and the 


329 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


latter in the west, the dividing line being roughly the meridian 
of Tripoli. The Tibbu area includes the mountains of Tibesti 
and Borku; the Tuareg area includes the mountains of Ahaggar 
and Air. 

The Tibbu and Tuareg are crosses between Berber and Arabs on 
the one hand, and Sudanese Negroes on the other. The dominant 
elements of the population own a great many Negroesas slaves. In 
language the two are distinct—the Tuareg speak a Hamitic language 
and the Tibbu a Sudanese. 

Stock-farming is the principal economic interest. Camels, sheep, 
and, in Tibesti, goats are reared in large numbers. Where the 
ground is suitable—in the east of Tibestiand in Ahaggar, for example 
—there is also agriculture, the chief produce being the date-palm. 

Among both these peoples some tribes are settled and some are 
nomadic. The settled population live in quadrangular brick houses 
with a flat roof, but the black slave element occupy small beehive 
huts. The nomadic tribes live in square portable tents, those of 
the Tuareg being covered with skins sewn together, those of the 
Tibbu with plaited mats. In winter the Tibbu build small mud- 
houses. In the interior of Tibesti one still meets the ancient skin 
dress, but elsewhere the Mohammedan costume is almost universally 
worn. The men wear a wide-sleeved shirt and turban, and in 
addition the Tuareg wear breeches, burnous (or cloak), and leather 
sandals. Both peoples are rarely seen without the veil—usually 
blue. Their weapons are lances and a dagger carried attached to 
a bracelet, and they carry for defence an oval leather shield. The 
Tuareg used to carry bows and arrows, but they now use swords. 

7. The Littoral Tribes of North Africa. There still exist 
numerous antiquities from the littoral of North Africa whose history 
is unknown, but which in all probability go back to ancient Berber 
or Libyan origin. The most recent go back only to the Roman 
period. Most of them are megalithic graves, and cover in unnum- 
bered thousands the whole north littoral of Africa. The so-called 
trilites, or, as they are locally called, senam, are only found in 
Tripoli and Barka, while Algiers and Tunis are rich in dolmens and 
stone circles. North African antiquities also include the Hanuar or 
cave sepulchres. These are hewn in the rock, and the entrance is 
in some cases horizontal, in others perpendicular. Other ancient 
buildings: are castles built of mighty blocks without mortar, 
examples of which have been found in Tripoli and Barka. 


330 


THE PEOPLES OF THE EARTH 


The main body of the population of North Africa consists of the 
Berber, who speak a Hamitic tongue. Butat avery early period— 
in the thirteenth century B.c., in fact—the Semitic Phcenicians 
settled at various places on the coast, at Carthage and Utica, for 
example, and gradually conquered nearly the whole of North 
Africa, At the time of the Greeks and Romans the nomad 
Numidians and the settled Getulians were the chief tribes in 
Morocco and Algiers. The Roman conquest of North Africa 
resulted in the establishment of numerous states, but the Berber 
population still maintained its ground. At a later period Chris- 
tianity entered North Africa, and there were at one time no fewer 
than 170 episcopal sees. In the fifth century the Vandals invaded 
North Africa, and, after their empire had been destroyed by the 
Emperor Justinian’s general Belisarius in 534, the largest part of 
the coast of North Africa was annexed to the Byzantine Empire. 
In the seventh century the Arabs extended their conquests, and 
the governor Musa won the rest of Byzantine Africa in 700 for the 
Caliph, and this Semitic invasion, and the consequent introduction 
of Mohammedanism, could not fail to have far-reaching results 
on the population. From this time onward there were two chief 
racial types in North Africa—first, the aboriginal Berber, and, 
second, the invading Arabs. When the Caliph’s empire was divided 
modern Morocco became for a time an important state under the 
name of Maghrib el Acsa. At the period of its greatest power in 
the sixteenth century it included West Algeria and most of the 
Sahara as far as Senegambia and into the Western Sudan. 

The Arabs constitute a foreign element in this part of the world, 
and do not call for description here. But the names of the inde- 
pendent Arab tribes indicate the degree to which they are inter- 
mixed with Berber blood. The purer Arabs are called Ulad, and 
these are considered of nobler descent than the Beni, who have a 
greater infusion of Berber blood. 

At the present time pure Berber are to be found only in the 
hill country. They are a somewhat fair-skinned race of powerful 
physique. Their language is called Amasirgh, and it is also spoken 
by the Tuareg in the Sahara. The now extinct native population 
of the Canary Islands, who were called Guanches, were a Berber 
tribe. 

In contrast to the Arabs, who continue to be nomadic cattle- 
breeders, the Berber follow agriculture and trade. Their villages are 


33% 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


defended both by their situation and by fortifications. The great 
states in North Africa were not established by Berber, but by 
foreigners, chiefly Arabs. 

The social life of the Berber presents many points of interest. 
Even the ancients were struck by the extent to which the principle 
of mother-right prevailed among them. For example, when a 
chief died the sovereignty passed to the eldest son of the dead 
chief’s daughter. The various political communities are divided 
into a number of spheres, the heads of which, the kaids, are nomi- 
nated by the central government. Subordinate to the kaids are 
the sheikhs. Side by side with this arrangement are larger 
combinations, the sots, which play an important part in case of 
hostile attack. They consist of volunteers drawn from one or 
several communities. 

8. The Population of Madagascar. The inhabitants of Mada- 
gascar are to be included among the peoples of Africa. There are 
two types—a dark, curly-haired, negroid population in the western 
half of the island, and a fair-skinned, immigrant Malayan people 
in the eastern half. To the former belong the Sakalava. The latter 
are usually spoken of as Hova. 

Up to the beginning of the fourteenth century the Sakalava had 
two considerable states in Madagascar, Menabe in the south and 
Imboina in the north. Some of the Hova were tributary to these. 
Later, however, these Sakalava states were conquered by Hova 
chiefs, the most famous of whom was Radama I, and the Hova 
became masters of the whole island. The government was on a 
feudal basis, and the rulers’ power was held in check by that of the 
higher nobility. The influence of the nobility was specially great 
under the female regents, and in the nineteenth century these out- 
numbered the male rulers. Since 1896 Madagascar has been a 
French colony. 

There are numerous Malayan-Indonesian features in the culture 
of the Hova. Their clothing, for example, is a loin-cloth and a 
wrap or shawl, which has been copied from the Sakalava. Their 
main crops are rice, sugar-cane, and taro. Other Malayan features 
are the use of the blowing- -tube, and some SEO customs, such 
as the taboo. 

The Sakalava are mainly stock-farmers, although many of them 
also raise crops. 

The Hova houses are very strong and are built of clay. The roof 


332 


Totiive tO Ph SiO hei H Bob ART by 


is steep, and rests, not on the house-wall, but on posts which 
stand clear of the wall, and thus a sort of veranda is produced. 
A characteristic feature of the Hova house is the provision at each 
end of two roof-spars, which cross each other and project above the 
roof. The chiefs’ palaces in the capital, Antananarivo, are built 
in exactly the same style, but are, of course, far larger than the 
ordinary houses. 

The Hova to-day are Christian, and the official form of religion 
is Presbyterianism. In former times the coast population was 
Mohammedan. Indeed, Arab influence was formerly far greater 
than it is to-day, and the Arab settlements in the island were far 
more numerous. 


THE PEOPLES OF EURASIA 


THE PEOPLES IN THE ASIATIC-EUROPEAN ZONE 


In the population of the great continent which includes Europe 
and Asia, and which we may call Eurasia, there are two races which 
excel all others both in numbers and in culture. These are the 
Mediterranean, or Indo-Atlantic, race in the west, and the Mongolian 
race in the east. 

Leaving out of account the spread of the civilized European 
peoples across the seas, and omitting any mention of the recent 
gradual spread of the civilized peoples of Eastern Asia also, the 
location in Eurasia of the two principal races is broadly as 
follows: 

With the sole exception of the Turkish power in North Africa, 
the Monogolian race is confined to the Eurasian continent. But it 
occupies almost the whole of Asia—the exceptions are Near Asia, 
Near India and the Archipelago—and has outposts besides in 
North Europe, Asia Minor, and Turkey. It was undoubtedly 
in former times the most numerous race in the world, but to- 
day, with its five hundred millions, it makes a bad second to the 
Mediterranean race, which is estimated at eight hundred and eighty- 
five millions. 

The Mongolian race comprises the following three principal 
groups: 

(1) The civilized peoples of East Asia—the Chinese, Japanese, 
and Coreans, as well as the Tibetans and the Chinese hill 
tribes of Farther India. 

380 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


(2) The Indo-Chinese in Farther India—Burmans, Siamese, and 
Annamese. 

(3) The Ural-Altaics, divided linguistically into Uralians, Altaics, 
Mongols proper, and the Turco-Tartars. 


By Uralians we mean that branch of the Mongol group which 
extends far into North-east Europe. The Samoyedes and the 
Wogul are found both in North Asia and North-east Europe. The 
Lapps, Finns, Esthonians, and, farther south, the Magyars, are con- 
fined to Europe only. In North Asia only there are the East Yaks. 

To the Altaics belong, among others, the Tunguse, including the 
Manchus, the former rulers of China. | 

The Mongols proper occupy Central Asia. They are subdivided 
into East Mongols in Mongolia, the Buryats on Lake Baikal, and 
West Mongols, or Calmucks, and Karacalmucks—the two last 
extending from the Middle Huangho to the Volga. 

The Turco-Tartars fill up Western and Near Asia—from the Lena 
to the Adriatic. They include the Yacuts in North Asia, the 
Karakhirgese and Turkomans in Middle Asia, the Bashkirs in the 
Volga area, the Crimean Tartars farther south, and, finally, the 
Osmans or Turks. The Turco-Tartars also included the Huns, 
Avars, and Chasars, who attacked the peoples of Europe in the early 
part of the Middle Ages. 

The Mediterranean or Indo-Atlantic race are not confined to 
Eurasia. Only one of its three main branches was so confined—the 
Aryans or Indo-Germans. Even of them it only holds good for the 
period before the discoveries. Since then the Indo-Germans have 
spread over large portions of all the continents—over most of 
America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, and other islands 
of the South Seas. They also invaded North Africa in ancient times 
and in the Middle Ages, in the times of the Greeks and Romans and 
Vandals. 

The Semitic branch spread to Africa at an early period. The 
Phoenicians founded colonies on the north coast, and in the Cartha- 
ginian period they had occupied most of that coast. At a later 
time the Arabs, as we have already seen, appeared there also. 

The third branch of the Indo-Atlantic race, the Hamites, are 
practically confined to Africa. The only exceptions are the Basques 
in the Pyrenees. The ancient Iberians were probably the remnants 
of a branch of the Hamites who had at one time spread over Spain. 


334 



























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Pree HORDES Ob bk HARSH 


The Indo-Germans are found throughout all Europe, except in 
the areas occupied by the Ural-Altaic peoples already mentioned, 
and they also cover large areas of Near Asia. They have even sent 
a branch into thickly peopled India. 

Besides the Mongolian and the Indo-Atlantic races, which have 
intimate connexions both with the civilization of Mediterranean 
Europe and with that of Eastern Asia, there are several other 
elements in the population of Eurasia—the Malayan race in the 
south-east and the Dravidians in Near India. Both are lower in 
civilization than those already mentioned and are remnants of 
more ancient populations. 

As we have repeatedly said, ethnology is concerned only with 
peoples outside of the zones of Asiatic and European civilization, 
and we confine ourselves here to the peoples last mentioned. But 
before going farther, we shall take a short glance at the great 
religions, all of Asiatic origin, which unite the civilizations of large 
tracts of Eurasia, and which have a powerful influence in many 
other parts of the world. 

There are two great religious communities which originated in 
Asia and can be traced back to definite founders. One is the 
Indian-East Asiatic, and is clearly distinguished from the Western, 
which is Semitic in origin. 

It was in Near India that the most powerful influence on 
the religious life of the whole south and east of Asia was born. 
Here originated two great religious communities, Brahminism and 
Buddhism. 

Unlike Buddhism, Brahminism cannot be traced back to a 
founder. It is the result of a gradual evolution from the natural 
religion found in the ancient Vedas. Brahma is not a creative 
deity. Hedid not create the world. He is himself the soul of the 
world, the motive power in nature ; all existence returns to Brahma. 
This explains the close connexion between Brahminism and the 
doctrine of the transmigration of souls, which aims at ever higher 
perfection. But it is not only to this world-soul that Brahminism 
pays homage. There are numerous other deities, e.g., the upholding, 
life-giving Vishnu, and the destroying deity, Siva. For a time 
Buddhism ousted Brahminism, but in the seventh century a.p. 
the Buddhists were expelled from Near India, and Brahminism 
awakened to new life in a new form, Hinduism. In its new form it 
was even more polymorphous than before; its deities were more 


335 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


numerous and embraced not only pious and famous men, but local 
and family deities. 

Brahminism had one important effect on social life. Its teaching 
encouraged the spirit of caste in India, and pushed it to an extreme. 
Only the members of the highest caste, the Brahmins, are in close 
touch with the gods, and only they can be mediators between the 
gods and the other castes. This view led to the formation of a 
regular priestly state, and the common people are kept by innu- 
merable formalities in a state of political dependence and intellectual 
subjection to the Brahmins. 

At the present day the number of those professing Brahminism 
or Hinduism is estimated at 200 millions. 

There are numerous differences, both internal and external, 
between Brahminism and Buddhism, which was also born in Near 
India. Buddhism was founded about 500 B.c. by the reformer 
Siddhartha Gautama, of the noble family of Sakya. Gautama was 
born at Nepal, at the foot of the Himalayas. Atthe age of twenty- 
nine, tired of the vain world and of the evil of human life, he left his 
wife and family, and after seven years of hermit life, spent in severe 
self-chastenings, he recetved, while under the bodh1, or sacred fig- 
tree, in a sudden illumination the knowledge that saves. In 
contrast to Brahminism, which power and wealth had rendered rigid, 
Buddhism, in its first pure form, laid the chief emphasis on inward- 
ness. As it was not only a gospel for a privileged caste, but a 
message of deliverance for the whole people, which could be summed 
up in easily intelligible formule, it could not fail to impress 
Siddhartha himself, who after his illumination became the Buddha, 
and spent the rest of his long life preaching, teaching, and founding 
orders of monks and nuns. His teaching can be summed up in the 
so-called Four Truths : 


(1) All life is suffering. 

(2) This suffering is due to the desire for pleasure. 

(3) Suffering can cease only when all desire has been destroyed. 
(4) A path with eight stages leads to the cessation of suffering. 


Buddhism is a religion of renunciation—hence the prominence 
in it of monasticism, including mendicant monasticism. Deliver- 
ance from reincarnation, the complete and definitive cessation of 
life, and therefore of suffering, by entrance into Nirvana (z.e., 
nothingness) is the last and highest goal of all striving. 


336 


itiey PROP MESO DE re ARE TT 


Before he died Siddhartha Buddha charged his disciples to collect 
his teaching and preach it in the whole world. This injunction was 
the beginning of a mighty propaganda of the Buddhist faith. As 
in the case of the early Christians, much persecution fell to the 
lot of the followers of Buddha, but, despite all hindrances, it spread 
with great rapidity. Its best period in Near India was the third 
century B.c. Under the protection of King Arokas of Patalipura, 
the Buddhists held their Great Council, which assured its progress 
and long continuance. 

It spread rapidly, northward to Afghanistan and Turkestan and 
southward to Ceylon. In the first century of our era it reached 
China and became one of the recognized religions there. In the 
sixth century it spread through Korea and reached Japan. A 
century later it had taken root in Tibet. In India itself, it is true, 
Buddhism became extinct in the eleventh century. Sanguinary 
religious wars raged for centuries, and Islam, which had entered 
India in the eighth century, did much to fan the flames. The 
Buddhists were subdued. For the Brahmins, Buddhism, which 
attacked their traditional principles and threatened their social 
privileges, meant the destruction of their importance, and so they 
could not but offer to it the sternest resistance. But Buddhism, 
though it perished in India, began a new career in Ceylon. From 
that island missionaries went forth, and the Buddhism of Farther 
India bears numerous marks of its Ceylon origin. The sanctuaries 
and relics of the island vie in importance with those of Lhassa. 
Buddha’s footprint on Adam’s Peak, his tooth, preserved in a box 
enclosed in numerous other boxes, and other relics of the kind 
attract thousands of pious pilgrims every year. As the centuries 
passed Buddhism and Buddhist art spread eastward. About 
A.D. 450 it reached Burma, in 638, Siam, and subsequently it was 
brought to Java. Magnificent ruins in Farther India, in Siam, and 
in Cambodia bear silent witness to its former wide distribution in 
these lands. In Java and West Sumatra it gave rise to powerful 
kingdoms, and its influence spread eastward as far as Bali. To this 
day there are Buddhist communities both in Bali and in East Java. 
On the other hand, since the fifteenth century Islam has driven 
Buddhism from Indonesia. 

This wide extension in lands where still more ancient religions 
existed has caused Buddhism to assume various forms among dif- 
ferent peoples. Its great toleration toward other religions, and its 


Y 337 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


freedom from any exclusive formalism, assisted in producing these 
adaptations. We can justly speak of a Cingalese Buddhism, a 
Buddhism of Farther India, of Tibet, of China, and of Japan, but 
there are two main tendencies that are common to all its varieties. 
One is Ninayana (small vessel), which is the predominant form in 
the south, in Ceylon, Burma, and Siam. It represents the older, 
simpler form, and has even less of the eternity of reincarnation. 
The other is Mahayana (large vessel), which prevails in Tibet, 
Mongolia, Manchuria, China, and Korea. Its characteristic feature 
is the possibility of gradually rising by way of manifold reincar- 
nation to the Bodhisattva, a divine being that differs little from 
Buddha himself, and which takes human form only in order to help 
other men. Such an incarnation is the Dalai-Lama, the head of 
the Buddhist Church in Tibet, who lives in Lhassa and is also the 
political ruler there. 

Like Islam, Buddhism has raised pilgrimage to the status of a 
great religio-political institution, which has made places so far 
distant from each other as Ceylon, Lhassa, and Urga important 
centres for great tracts of Asia. Thousands of Buddhists make the 
yearly pilgrimage to Lhassa to receive the blessing of the Dalai- 
Lama in the monastery of Potala. 

Over against the polytheistic religions of South and East Asia we 
have in the west the monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, 
and Islam, which all grew up on Semitic soil—in the narrow strip 
between Jerusalem and Mecca. 

We cannot enter here at any length into the history of these 
religions. It was among the Israelites that a distinctive mono- 
theism first appeared, or at least became known. In contrast to 
the other religions with which we are here concerned, the Jewish 
religion was at all times a national religion. With very few excep- 
tions, the Jews have never transmitted their religion to other 
peoples, and that religion, despite its wide distribution and despite 
all the persecutions it has endured, has remained practically 
unchanged in the form it assumed in the Jewish theocratic state 
that arose after the Babylonian Exile, Since the time when the 
Jews were allowed free movement among European peoples (2.e., 
since the beginning of the nineteenth century) their numbers have 
greatly increased, and there are to-day nearly twelve million Jews 
in the world. For a long while their chief communities have been 
found in the Slav countries in the east of Middle Europe. 


338 


td Pee OPI Ss Oho DEB A RED ET 


Christianity developed from Judaism at the beginning of our era, 
but it made no great headway in the country of its birth. It 
established itself first in some centres of Greek culture in the East, 
and after prolonged persecutions it took root in the Roman Empire. 
At the beginning of the fourth century, under Constantine the Great, 
it was recognized by the State. Under the egis of the secular power 
it brought about the conversion of the Mediterranean lands, and in 
the next thousand years the whole of Europe was won for Chris- 
tianity. The Middle Ages were dominated by the idea of the 
Divine State, or City of God, the idea that God had created Church 
and State, and the ideal aimed at was to build up the German 
Empire, which was conceived to be the continuation of the Roman 
Empire, into a Christian world-state. The Christian propaganda 
of the Middle Ages aimed at the Christianizing of nations rather 
than at the conversion of their populations. 

The chief hindrance to the spread of Christianity both in the East 
and in North Africa was Mohammedanism, which began to spread 
from Arabia in the seventh century, but a few ancient remnants of 
Christianity have survived in Mohammedan territory down to the 
present day. These include the Copts in Egypt and the Abyssinians, 
the Nestorians in Syria, and the Thomeans in India. 

At an early stage divisions arose within the Christian Church. 
The dispute between the Arians and Athanasians was settled at 
the first Gécumenical Church Council of Nicwa in 325. The ‘Nicene 
Creed’ rejected the doctrine of Arius, and made the teaching of 
Athanasius, which declared Christ to be co-equal with God, the 
authoritative teaching of the Church. In the eleventh century 
occurred the cleavage between the Eastern and the Western 
Churches, and both sections still claim to be the Church Catholic. 
The former, which is usually called the Orthodox Eastern Church, 
is mainly confined to Near Asia and Eastern Europe, and has its 
chief centre in the Russias, including Russia in Asia. In 1910 the 
number of Eastern Christians was estimated at 154 millions. 

The Western, or Roman Catholic, Church has its head in Rome, 
in the Papacy which has gradually grown in power and authority. 
The American conquests of the Spaniards and Portuguese in the 
sixteenth century enabled it to extend its sway over large tracts 
of America. The conquered peoples either accepted Christianity 
or were extirpated. 

The founding of the Society of Jesus in 1534 was the signal for 

339 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


vigorous missionary effort in foreign lands, and in 1622 the Congre- 
gatio de propaganda fide was set up in Rome to co-ordinate and 
strengthen the work of the missionaries, The dissolution of the 
order by Pope Clement XIV in 1773 greatly retarded Catholic 
missionary work among native races, but it was resumed with great 
vigour in the middle of the nineteenth century, and the re-estab- 
lished Jesuits and other orders, especially French orders, have 
laboured incessantly in foreign fields. The Roman Catholic Church, 
with its 295 millions, is without doubt the largest Christian Church 
to-day. 

In the sixteenth century, as we have seen, the Roman Catholic 
Church made great gains in America, but about the same time it 
suffered great losses in North and Middle Europe. The Protestant 
communities which arose at the Reformation in the sixteenth cen- 
tury spread chiefly among the Germanic nations, and these have 
carried their faith to North America, South Africa, and Australia. | 
In the nineteenth century missionary efforts have made great gains 
in foreign fields, although up to the present no other compact, 
purely Protestant areas can be named. In 1910 the number of 
Protestants all over the world was estimated at 204 millions. 

About 600 years after the foundation of Christianity another 
religious movement arose, first in Mecca and afterward in Medina, 
presenting, like Christianity, a new faith to the world. Moham- | 
medanism, or Islam, as its adherents themselves call it, was built on 
the Jewish and Christian views with which Mohammed, before his 
prophetic period, had become acquainted in his travels. Like 
Christianity, Islam looks to an individual as itsfounder. Like the 
Founder of Christianity, Mohammed was subjected to great persecu- 
tion, especially at the hands of the powerful Koreishites, the rulers 
and elders in Mecca, and he had to flee from his native city, Mecca, 
to Medina. This flight took place on July 16, 622, and from this 
date the Mohammedan calendar (Hegira) is reckoned. Whereas 
the idea of a Christian world-empire only arose centuries after the 
beginning of Christianity, Mohammed began at once to spread his 
teaching by force and laid the foundation of a Mohammedan world- 
empire, a Caliphate, which reached its zenith a century later. In 
630 Mohammed had conquered Mecca from his base at Medina, and 
before his death in 632 he had the whole of Arabia at his feet. His 
successors were called Caliphs, and of these Caliph Omar did most 
to extend the bounds of his dominion by force of arms. Syria and 


340 


Wee BOPMESWORIIME EARTH 


Jerusalem were conquered ; the neo-Persian Empire of the Sassa- 
nids was destroyed; Egypt was conquered by Omar’s general 
Amru, and the Arab rule was established throughout the whole 
East. In 661 the Caliphate passed to the Sunnitic Ommayads. 
They removed their seat from Medina to Damascus, and their 
governor, Musa, conquered Byzantine Africa as far as the Atlantic 
coast. His subordinate, Tarik, crossed from Africa to Spain and 
destroyed the empire of the West Goths at the battle of Xeres de la 
Fronteira. Further victories followed, and it was not till 732 that 
their victorious career was checked in the famous battle between 
Tours and Poitiers. Under the last Ommayads the Caliphate 
embraced in a compact empire the south-west of Asia from the 
Arabian Gulf and from the Indus to the Mediterranean and to the 
Caucasus, the whole north coast of Africa, the greater part of the 
Spanish peninsula, Narbona in the south of France, with Sardinia, 
Corsica, and the Balearic Islands. In 750 the Caliphate passed to 
the Abassids, and the seat of government was changed to Bagdad. 
Under Haroun al-Raschid Mohammedan culture in art, science, and 
industry produced its best results. And, although the political 
power of the Caliphate fell soon after his death, and Egypt and the 
west of North Africa became separate Caliphates, Islam endured 
and even extended beyond the bounds of the ancient Caliphate. It 
has continued to spread in Central Asia, India, China, in the Sunda 
Islands, and in Africa, and the number of Mohammedans to-day 
may be put at 230 millions, 

Like Christianity, Islam also has developed internal differences. 
The ‘Sunnites’ recognize not only the Koran, but also the recorded 
traditional sayings of the prophet, the Sunna; the Shiites reject 
the Sunna and look upon Ali, Mohammed’s son-in-law, as the only 
legitimate successor of the prophet. Even in the time of the 
undivided Caliphate this cleavage between these two sects led to 
continual disputes which had repercussions in the political realm, 
and there are still to-day 10-12 million Shiite Iran, who form 
a community apart from other Mohammedans. Other separate 
bodies are the Senussi orders and the Mahdists. Botharose in Africa, 
and have had important political ramifications. We have already 
spoken of the rapid rise of the Mahdi dominion on the Upper Nile. 

In spite of these internal divisions of Islam, and in spite of the 
huge area it affects, there is one bond that unites all Moslems. This 
is the possession of places of pilgrimage, especially Mecca. Mecca 


341 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


is a rallying ground for Moslems to an extent beyond anything that 
Jerusalem or Rome ever attained. The ancient ordinance still 
holds good that every Moslem must have made the pilgrimage to 
Mecca once in his life, and Mecca is annually visited by many 
thousands of pilgrims. Some of them come from the ends of the 
earth, and do not see their homes for years. The Moslem who has 
fulfilled the conditions required by a perfect pilgrimage—the most 
important being his presence on Mount Arafat at a certain season— 
ceases to be a simple Moslem. He becomes a hadji and, as such, 
enjoys special honour among his compatriots. 


EURASIAN PEOPLES OUTSIDE THE ASIATIC-EUROPEAN ZONE. 


I. The Malayan Tribes. It is obvious that, as the result of 
repeated migrations and the wide extension of states and the 
spread of religion, the Mongolian and Indo-Atlantic civilizations 
cannot have failed to influence powerfully the other Eurasian 
peoples, so that it is in many cases impossible to draw a sharp line 
of division and say where that influence has stopped. So many 
waves of culture have passed over the Malayan group of peoples 
that it is difficult now to draw such a line. Even more profound 
than the Arab influence that accompanied the spread of Islam since 
the beginning of the Middle Ages, or the influence that emanated _ 
from Europe since the latter part of the Middle Ages, or the influence 
of China, have been the results of the religions of India. The most 
important influence that affected ancient Malayan culture was that 
of Hinduism, The Malayan writing, their calendar, their theatre, 
many of their religious conceptions, their dances, and other 
expressions of their art can be traced back to India. But there 
still remains sufficient genuine Malayan civilization to justify a 
separate description of it. 

The Malayan race is mostly confined to the islands lying off the 
south-west coast of Asia. A few are found on the peninsula of 
Malacca, and some in Farther India. The Malayans have spread 
northward from the large islands in the south-east of Asia to the 
Philippines and to Formosa, and westward to Madagascar. We 
have already referred to their connexions with the Polynesians and 
Micronesians in the Far East. With their straight, black hair and 
their yellow-brown or olive-brown complexion they have some 
resemblance to the Mongols. 


342 


Pia Tie, 


NEWLY WED DyYAK COUPLE 


Borneo 
Photo Haeckel 





PLATE: 80 





CHIEF’S HOUSE IN THE PHILIPPINES 
Photo Otto Haeckel 


MEN’s CLUBHOUSE AT PADANG 


Sumatra 
Photo Haeckel 








THE PEOPLES OF THE EARTH 


Agriculture is the central feature of their economic life. The 
chief crop is rice. It is raised either on dry ground or on ground 
that is under water. Maize and sweet potatoes have been intro- 
duced from America, and large quantities of both are grown. The 
chief fruit-trees are the various species of palm—the durian and the 
sago-palm. One remarkable feature of their tillage is the use of a 
plough by the highland Batta of Sumatra. It is a narrow, iron 
ploughshare fixed in a wooden handle. The principal domesticated 
animals are poultry and the buffalo, but almost all the other 
animals found in Asia and Europe are represented. 

In keeping with the abundant fauna in the Malayan area, there 
is a great deal of hunting, and every considerable island has its special 
hunting tribes. Hunting parties use nets about thirty feet long, 
and there is much trapping. Fishing is carried on on a large scale, 
and all sorts of methods and apparatus are used—nets, lines, 
crawls, spears, and poisons. In some districts a large trade is done 
in fish—dried, smoked, and pickled. 

Betel-chewing is universal, and tobacco is both smoked and used 
as snuff. The Dyaks keep in the mouth pellets of tobacco ash. In 
Sumatra little intoxicating liquor is used, but in other districts 
much palm-wine is drunk, and alcoholic liquors are made from rice 
and sugar-cane. 

Most of the houses are pile-dwellings. Indian influence explains 
the numerous houses in Java that are built on the ground. Most 
of the pile-dwellings are rectangular, but in the Nicobars and in 
Engano many of them are circular. They vary in size, according 
as they are meant for one or more families, for unmarried men’s 
quarters or for entire villages. The village pile-dwellings in Borneo 
are sometimes a hundred yards in length. 

Malayan clothing to-day shows many traces of Asiatic influence. 
Breeches are worn by many of the people. The usual dress is a 
kind of skirt or petticoat and a shawl. A kerchief, or even a cap, 
is the usual headdress. Disfigurement of the teeth is widely 
practised, but there is not so much tattooing. 

There is a great deal of metalworking, and ironware has been 
manufactured for a considerable time. Here and there gold and 
silver smithwork has reached a high degree of perfection, and brass- 
-foundingis quitecommon. Thereis weaving and dyeing. In Java 
there is a special type of dyeing, called batik. The material to be 
dyed is patterned with melted wax, so that the dye only affects the 


343 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


unwaxed parts. Pottery is found everywhere, but it is not of a 
high order. Bamboo is worked up into all kinds of wares. 

The social organization is based on blood-relationship, and 
membership in the suku, the chief social union among the Malays, is 
determined by descent on the maternal side. The members of the 
various tribes may live anywhere, so that the authority of the tribal 
chief over his subjects is not confined to any locality, and extends 
over individuals resident in different villages. But there are also 
chieftains over the villages. Indian and Mohammedan influences 
have led to the formation of even larger communities, and there are 
numerous sultanates, embracing certain seaports or even river areas. 
The largest are the sultanates of Solo and Djogdja in Java and 
Atjeh in North Sumatra. 

Polygamy is common, but each wife usually has her own separate 
household. 

War and piracy are far from rare. Adjacent communities are 
frequently at feud with each other, and ‘head-hunting,’ or koppen- 
snellen, isa common pastime among many tribes. Bows and arrows 
are little used. The national weapon is the creese, a short sword, 
splendidly chased. The lance is nearly as universal, and in Sumatra, 
Borneo, and Malacca they use the blowing-tube. In Borneo the 
blowing-tube is pointed with iron, and can be used as a thrusting 
weapon. Shields of all kinds are the universal defensive weapon. 

Although many tribes in the interior of Malacca, Borneo, Luzon, 
and other islands have no boats of any kind, and other fishing tribes 
are content with bamboo floats and dug-outs, the majority of the 
Malayans are splendid sailors. In earlier times they pursued their 
piracy and undertook distant trading voyages in the flat-keeled 
sailing boats. 

2. The Dravidians. In Near India there is a group of peoples 
who are, somatically, linguistically, and culturally, quite different 
both from representatives of the Asiatic-European civilizations 
and from the primitive Indo-Australians in the interior of the 
peninsula. They are usually called by the collective name of 
Dravidians. There are from forty to sixty millions of them. They 
are of medium size, very black, with very dark, wavy or curly hair. 
The chief branch are the Tamil. They inhabit the southern half 
of Near India (the Deccan) and number about fifteen millions. 

Opinions differ greatly with regard to the relations of the 
Dravidians to the chief races of mankind. There is no doubt, 


34.4 


eet OP or Ohm DEB ARH 


however, that they possessed considerable civilization even before 
their culture began to be assimilated to that of the other peoples of 
India. Their system of writing, for example, goes back to 1000 B.c., 
and the Brahmin deities Vishnu and Siva were originally Dravidian 
deities and were adopted at a later time by Brahminism. 

3. The Negritoes and Indo-Australians. All over the south and 
south-east of Asia, in the more remote corners, are the remnants of 
a population comprising two distinct racial elements. One element 
consists of short, dwarfish people, with very dark skin and black, 
frizzy hair—the Negrito ; the other is the Indo-Australians. They 
are also short in stature, although not so short as the Negrito, their 
complexion is a medium brown, and their hair is wavy, coarse, and 
black. The small remnant of the Negrito is mostly confined to the 
Andaman Islands, parts of the Malay Peninsula, and the interior of 
the large Philippines. The Indo-Australians, on the other hand, are 
scattered over the whole of South-east Asia and the Malay Archi- 
pelago. Of the latter the best-known are the Vedda in Ceylon, the 
Munda and Kol in the north-east of Hindustan, the Senoi in Farther 
India, and the Kubu in the virgin forests of South Sumatra. 

All these tribes are at an extremely low stage of civilization. 
They have no agriculture and no cattle, and the only domesticated 
animal is the dog. They live solely on hunting and gathering, and 
roam about within their own territory without fixed places of abode. 
They are described as harmless and peaceful. They spend the night 
under a roofed shelter made of leaves. Some of the Vedda live 
in caves. The digging stick is their principal implement. Their 
clothing is a loin apron drawn through between the legs and a hcad- 
dress, both made from bark. Many of them dye their skin, and 
practise scar-tattooing. They wear very little ornament. 

It has caused surprise in some quarters that monogamy should 
be the usual practice among tribes so low in the scale, and that 
‘dumb barter’ should be the typical form of economic intercourse 
between the Kubu and the Malayan traders. 

4. The Palz-Asiatics. In North-east Asia there is a separate 
group, which, although more or less fused with Mongolian elements, 
does not belong to the Mongolians. They are the remnants of an 
ancient stratum of Asiatic population, To this group belong the 
Ainu. They are of North Asiatic origin, and now inhabit the 
south of Sakhalian, most of the Curiles, and parts of North Yesso. 
Formerly they extended farther south. The Ainu are differentiated 


345 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


from the Mongolian race by their hairiness and their fair skin, and 
in their facial characteristics they have a much greater resemblance 
to the Indo-Atlantic race. 

The Chukchi, on the peninsula of that name, and the Yukaghir, 
farther west, are the purest types of the ancient Asiatic tribes. 
Farther south, the Koryaks, the remnants of the Itelme or Kam- 
chadale in Kamchatka, and the Aleutians approximate more to 
the Mongolian type. The Yeniseians, in the neighbourhood of 
Turukhanst, are also ancient Asiatics. 

The climate excludes all agriculture from the economic life of 
these tribes. The most important animal isthe reindeer. Hunting 
and fishing are essential activities, and on the coast and on the rivers 
there are numerous settlements, whose main purpose is to pursue 
fishing and the hunting of sea mammals. Traps, slings, and nets 
are used. Bows and arrows are employed to shoot birds, and the 
Chukchi employ a missile weapon resembling the South American 
bolas. 

The Chukchi live in semi-spherical tents covered with whale-skin. 
The Kamchadales and Koryaks spend the winter in earth-pits 
covered with wood. They are entered from the roof by means of 
ladders. 

The clothing, which is much the same for men and women, is 
made of fur, leather, or fish-skin. A sort of shirt is worn over short © 
breeches, and a hood is worn on the head. The girdle is of leather, 
and top-boots are worn. 

The chief industry is the preparation of hides and leather. Most 
of the work is done by women, and they also make the greater 
part of the wearing apparel. 

The people move about on sledges, drawn by dogs or reindeer, 
and on snow-shoes. The shoes are either like those used in North 
America, a wooden rim, interlaced (like a tennis racquet) with strips 
of leather, or the well-known skis. On the water the Chukchi and 
the Aleutians use boats of skin, kayaks, and umtaks, such as the 
Eskimo use. 

One of the ancient Asiatic tribes is the Eskimo tribe of Yuit. 
They came from Alaska to the Asiatic coast of the Bering Sea. 
They differ little from their tribal kin in America. 


346 


SUBJECT INDEX 


ABD-EL-KERIM, 322 

Acllacuna, 263 

Adhesive substances, used by natives, 
136 

Age classes, 189, 220, 320 

Age, distinctions based on, 174 

Age grades, 165 

Ahuizotl, King, 87 

Air burial, 78 

Algarroba, 239, 241 

Alpaca, 120, 121, 260 

Altruism, as human _ characteristic, 


54 
Analysis, ethnological, 48 
Ancestor-worship (manism), 200, 275 
Animal world, and man, 56, 98-100; 
raw material from, 114 ff. 
Animal-worship, 200 
Animalism, 200 
Animals, domestic, 95; used for fight- 
ing, 161 ; used for fishing, 116; used 
for hunting, 119 
Animism, 200 
Ankermann, on Ratzel’s doctrine, 38 
Anthropo-geography, 23 
Anthropology, 15 
Anthropophagy, 63-64 
Anthropos, L’, 34 
Arabi Pasha, 327 
Archeology and ethnology, 23 
Arians, 339 
Armour, 70, 216 
Arrows, 118-119, 160 
Art and religion, 193; 
195 
Artistic production, 194 
Atahualpa, Inca, 258 
Athanasians, 339 
Atterrados, 109 
Axayacatl, Inca, 225 
Axe, 160 
Ayllu, 262-263 
Ayllucamayoc, 262 


and science, 


BACHOFEN, 168 

Bachue, 257 

Badges of rank, 154 

Bat, 277, 278 

Ball-play, 71, 81, 83, Plate 13 

Balsa, 141 

Banana, 208, 241 

Bargaining, beginning of, 188 

Bark ises. Of 127,06 F40n 0637, 
282 

Barter, 180 

Basketry, 130 ff.; patterns, 128-129 

Bastian, Adolf, 19, 20, 37-38 

Batata, 113, 297 

Bathing-places, 67, Plate 2 

Batik, 343, Plate 26 

Beasts of burden, 139 

Bedstead, 71, 73 

Bellows, 126 

Betel, 62, 66 

Bilingualism, 153 

Blood-letting, 75-78 

Blood-vengeance, 147, 170 

Blowing-tube, 119, Plate 19 

Boats, 140, 274, 286; of bark, 141; 
of calabash, 141; of planks, 141 ; 
of skins, 141 

Body, care for, 67; deformations of, 
68-69; painting of, 267, 271; train- 
ing of, 71; teatment of, 66—80 

Boiling of food, 137, 217, 244, 281 

Bola, 119, 160 

Bone-house, 80 

Boomerang, 160, 219 

Botany and ethnology, 24 

Bow and arrow, 118-119, 160 

Brahminism, 335-336 

Bridges, 152 

Buddhism, 336-338 

Bull-roarer, 85, 220, 276, 293 

Burial, methods of, 76-80, 236, 244, 
245, 253-256, 295, 311, 321 

Burning-glass, 124 


138, 


347 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


CAESAREAN SECTION, 76 

Calendar, primitive, 157, 228, 232 

Callings, rise of different, 173 

Canals, 152 

Cane-chair basketry, 133 

Cannibalism, 63-64 

Castigations, self-inflicted, 229 

Cave-structures, Plate 34, Plate 77 

Ceremonial dress, 84 

Ceremonial utensils, 85 

Chair, evolution of, 71, 74 

Charquis, runners, 156 

Chemical change, 137-8 

Chemistry and ethnology, 24 

Chequerwork, 131 

Chieftain, power of, 163, 173 

Child-stealing, 147, 172 

Christianity, 338 ff. 

Cigars, 66, 251, Plate 1 

Circumcision, 69, 275, 309, 318 

Civil law, 161 ff. 

Civilization, growth of, 52; history of, 
76; zones of, 37-38 

Classes, dress of, 68; duties of, 172; 
language of, 154; privileges of, 172 

Classificatory kinship, 165 ff. 

Clay, as raw material, 62, 92; working 
in, 124 

Cleanliness, 67 

Cliff-dwellings, 161, 218-219 

Climate, effects of, 95 

Clothing, 70-71 

Club for striking, mace, 160 

Club for throwing, 159 

Coil-work basketry, 133 

Combs, 67 

Commerce, 181, 216, 257, 309 

Commodities, classification of, 105; 
conveyance of, 178-184; definition 
of, 104, 175; distribution of, 174; 
exchange of, 179-180, 183; pleasur- 
able, 59; preservation of, 142-143; 
production of, 174 ff.; protection 
of, 143; sale of, 174, 188; storage 
of, 142; transport of, 138 ff. 

Communal economy, 161 

Communal principle, 187 

Communal production, 175 ff. 

Communication, means of, 151 ff. 

Competition, principle of, 162, 177 

Consanguinity, 165-166; and language, 
153 

Consumption, personal, 61 


348 


Control, distribution of, 162-163 
Convergence, theory of, 37 
Cording, 130 

Cormorants, fishing with, 100, 116 
Corroboree dancing, 269 
Couvade, 252, 275 

Cremation, 78 

Crossbow, 118 

Cupping, 76 

Custom and law, 193 

Custom, power of, 191, 231-232 


Dacna, smoking of, 66, 311 

Dagger, 160 

Dalai-Lama, 338 

Dancing, 81, 194; outfits, 85 

Darwinism, 35, 89 

Dead body, treatment of, 76 ff. 

Dead pledging, 183 

Débris, importance of, 92 

Deformation, various modes of, 68 ff. 

Degeneration, theory of, 37 

Demonism, 200 

Dialects, rise of, 153-154 

Digging stick, 108, 291 

Distribution of labour 
modities, 173 ff., 184 ff. 

Dog, 119-120, 140, 21I, 260, 280 

Double-thread basketry, 132 

Drawings by natives, value of, 44 

Drawings on sand, 155 

Dress, 68 ff. 

Drinking customs, 65; 
utensils, 64 

Drum language, 154, 252 

Duels, 244 

Dug-out, 141, 212, 216, 241, 254, 274, 
286, Plate 28 

Dumb trading, 180 


and com- 


methods, 64; 


EAR ornaments, 68, Plate 3 

Ear, perforation of, 68 

Earth’s surface, and man, 23, 96-98 

Eating customs, 64-65 

Economic intercourse, means of, 151; 
nature of, 148 ff.; organization of, 
148 ff.; rules of, 148 ff.; trading, 
170; varieties of, 149 ff. 

Economic principle, 187 

Economy, material, 102 ff. 

Economy, social, 174 ff.; inherent dual- 
ism of, 187 

Embalming, mummification, 79 


SUBJECT INDEX 


Endogamy, 167 

Equality of men not original, 172 

Ethnography, 15, 49 

Ethnological bibliography, 31 ff. ; 
material, 39-46; observation, 43; 
parallels, 37; system, 49-50 

Ethnology, general and special, 16, 49 

Ethnology, and other sciences, 20-30; 
history of, 18 ff.; definition of, 18; 
method of, 34 ff. 

Evolution series, 36 

Evolution, theory of, 35, 89 

Exogamy, 167 


FAMILY, 149, 177, 261, 285 

Fan-leaf weaving, 131-132 

Father-right, 168 

Feathers as ornament, 69, 215, Plate 5 

Fermentation, 138, 142 

Festivities, 215, 241, 265, 276 

Fetish figures, 86, Plate 75 

Fetishism, 200, 297 

Fighting, 170-171, Plates 31, 32 

Fire, as means of production, 123 

Fire-drill, 123, 292 

Fire-plough, 123 

Fire-pump, 124 

Fire-saw, 123, 124 

Fire-signals, 154 

Fish pots, 115; traps, 115 

Fishing, methods of, 100, 114 ff., 280 

Floating gardens, 223 

Food-stuffs from animal world, 62 ff.; 
from inanimate nature, 62; pre- 
paration of, 64; raw, 63; restrictions 
on, 64; vegetable, 62 

Forest-clearing, 48, 103, III 

Forks, 64 

Fortifications, 161 

Foy, school of, 26 

Frazer, Sir J. G., 29 

Fusang, fabled land of, 206 


Games of chance, 83; of imitation, 82; 
of movement, 83; of rivalry, 82; of 
skill, 83 

Gathering, 106, 107-108, 217, 241 

Geography and ethnology, 23 

Geology and ethnology, 24 

Geometrical patterns, 251 

Geophagy, 62 

Gesture language, 154, 268 

Gluing, 136 


Gold, 156-257, 318 

Graebner’s work in ethnology, 38 
Grater, utensil, 126 

Graves, various types of, 78 
Grilling, 137, 142 
Group-marriage, 167-168 
Gynocracy, 168 


HAHN, EDUARD, 44, 103, I12, 120 

Hair, care of, 67; modes of dressing, 
282 

Hair-brush, 67 

Hair-tongs, 67 

Hammock, 73 

Harakeke, 280 

Harpoon, 46 

Head-rest, 74 

Heads as trophies, 273, 344 

Healing by magic, 74-75 

Heat, changes due to, 137; important 
for man, 95; use of, 137 

Helmets, 71, 216 

Hinduism, 336 

History and ethnology, 26 

Hockey, 83 

Hoeing, 110 

Hologeic standpoint, 146, 187-188 

Horse, 159 

Hostile intercourse, 170-171 

House as shelter, 72 

House communities, 149, 169, 177 

Human activities, aim of, 54 ff. ; com- 
plexity of, 47-48; definition of, 51; 
limitations of, 89 ff., 144 ff., 189 ff.; 
nature of, 51-52 ; subject-matter of 
ethnology, 17-18 

Human race, classifications of, 203- 
204 

Human sacrifices, 87, 228, 257, 264 

Hunting, 116 ff., and passim; weapons, 
117, Plates 19, 20 

Hunting-screens, 117, 254, Plate 20 


ILLNEssS, treatment in, 74 
Inca, 262 
Inclined plane, use of, 139 
Individual as source of activity, 51-52 
Insects, preventatives against, 67 
Intellectual influences, 190 ff. 
Iron, 122, 125, 343 
Iroquoian league, 212 
Irrigation, III, 122, 259, 279, 325 
Islam, 339 ff. 
349 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


Joun, Negus of Abyssinia, 329 
Jurisprudence and ethnology, 27 


KATCHINA dances, 220 

Kava, 277, 279 

Kayak, t41, 211 

Kitchen-middens, 109 

Kivas, 220 

Knife, 75 

Knotted-strings, quipu, 154-155, 252, 
264, 268 


LABOUR, division of, 59, 170, 174, 184- 
185, 262 

Labour power, amount of, necessary for 
life, 103; essential to production, 
102-103, 144-145, 175 

Lance, 160 

Lancet, 75 

Land, an essential of production, 102- 
103,144,176; as acommodity, 175; 
importance of, for man, 96-97 

Language and consanguinity, 153 

Language, one changed for another, 
153 

Law, 162; and custom, 193; civil, 162, 
182; public, 162, 182 

Leggings, 70, 213, 216 

Lime used as manure, 110; used in 
food, 62; used in the hair, 67 

Lingoa geral, 154 

Linguistic stocks, 210 

Lip ornament, 68 

Literature, ethnological, 31 ff. 

Llama, 120, 140 

Loan, 183 

Loom, 134, 251, 307, Plates 25, 53 


MACLENNAN, 36 1%. 

Magical cures, 74-75 

Magicians, 85, 201; and illness, 75; 
outfit of, 85 

Mahdism, 322, 326-327 

Maize, 93 

Malthusian theory, 147 

Man, a commodity, 175; an agent in 
production, 101; essentially social, 
145; his relation to nature, 89 ff. 

Manioc, 113 

Manioc press or mill, Plate 21 

Manism, 200, 275 

Mankind, classifications of, 203-204 

Manure, use of, 110 


350 


Market, conception of, 156 

Markets, rise of, 180 

Marriage of brother and sister, 168 

Marsh shoes, 217 

Masked dancing, 85, 253 

Masks, 84, 216, 276, Plates 37, 43, 44 

Mason on weaving, 130 %., 133 

Massage, 75 

Mate, 94 

Matriarchate, 168 

Measurement, methods of, 158 ff. 

Medicine and ethnology, 25 

Medicine-man, 75, 201, 253 

Metals, how obtained, 122-123, 137, 
213, 225, 254, 261, 295, 307, 318, 343, 
Plate 22; working in, 125 

Migrations, 37 

Milieu, influence of, 22, 53 

Millstones, 126, 239, Plate 23 

Mimicry, I91, 199 

Mineralogy and ethnology, 24 

Minerals, as raw materials, 
distribution of, 91 

Mirrors, 67 

Moa, 280 

Moccasins, 70, 213 ff. 

Mohammedanism, 339 ff. 

Money, 104, 158%., 181, 188, 213, 226, 
27S Sto 

Monoxyle—see Dug-out 

Mosquito-net, 71, 74, 98, 242, Plate 1o 

Mother-right, 167, 213 

Mound-culture, 10o9g-110 

Multi-lingualism, 153 

Mummification, 79, Plate 12 

Music, 194, 198, Plate 63 

Musical bow, 292 

Musical instruments, 84, I9I, 293 

Mythical narratives, 100, 198 


90-91, 


NATIONALITY and language, 153 

Naturalism in art, 196 

Nature, and human activities, 89 ff.; 
as provider, 57; as sphere of human 
life, 89 ff.; exploited by man, 94-95 

Navigation, 96-97, 114 

Navigation-charts, 278 

Needs, variety of human, 55-56 

Net-fishing, 114, 280 

Network, 136 

News service, 155 

Nobility, rise of, 173 

Nobles, class of, 173, 216, 227, 240 


SUBJECT INDEX 


Nose ornament, 280 
Notched sticks, 155 
Numbers, use of, 151, 156, 158 


CECUMENE, ethnological, 146-147 
Oracles, 85, 202 
Organization of mankind, 
human intercourse, 148 ff. 
Ornament, 69 ff. 
Over-population, 147 
Ownership, 163-164, 182; marksof, 154 


146; of 


PACHACAMAC, Creator, 86, 265 

Painting, 193-194, Plate 26 

Palm-wine, 241, 277, 343 

Palolo worm, 281 

Penis-cover, 70 

Pepper-leaf, chewed, 62 ; as snuff, 66 

Percussion to produce fire, 124 

Perspiration houses, 75 

Philology and ethnology, 29 

Phylogenetic principle, 36 

Physics and ethnology, 24 

Pictorial writing, 155, 213, 226 

Pile-dwellings, 97, 249, 272, 317, Plate 8 

Pinnate-leaf pattern in weaving, 131 

Pipestone, 91, 127 

Place-marks, 151, 154 

Planting stick, 112 

Plant-life as raw material, 107 ff.; 
value of, 92-93 

Plants, domesticated, 113-114 

Plants, edible, 61 ff. 

Plastic arts, 194, 199, 251 

Play, 80 ff. 

Plough culture, 110, 343 

Poison, used for game, 118 and n.; 
used in fishing, 116 

Political economy and ethnology, 27 

Poncho, 224, 260 

Population, density of, 146; figures of, 
146 

Porterage, methods of, 140 

Positivism, 89 

Potlatch, 216 

Pottery, 124 

Preservation of commodities, 142 

Priests, 85, 202 

Production, communal, 177; economic, 
Peers. of,° ror ff, 176° fi;; 
essentials for, 102, 175-176 

Property, how created, 164 

Property marks, 154 


Psychology and ethnology, 28 

Puberty ceremonies, 174, 235, 
275, 308-309 

Pulque, 223 

Pyramids, 78, 229 


269, 


Questionnaives as an ethnological 
method, 46 

Quipu, knotted strings, 154, 252, 264, 
268 


RACE-PSYCHOLOGY, 28-29 

Race-religion, 30-31 

Rafts, 140, 217 

Ranks and classes, 172 

Rattles, 75 

Raw material, animal 114-115; inani- 
mate, 121; vegetable, 106 

Religion, 199; and art, 194; 
science, 199; science of, 30 

Religious ceremonies, 83-88 

Rent, origin of, 183 

Rest, places of, 152 

Rice, wild, 107, 212, 241 

Roads, 99, 151; marking of, 151 

Rock-drawings, 39, 155, 253 

Rod-mail, 71 

Rubber, 70, 83, 94 

Rubbish, important for ethnology, 92 


and 


SACRIFICES, 86; human, 87 

Salt; 627,122 

Sandals, 152, 224 

Scalps, 65, 241 

Scarification, instruments for, 75 

Scars, 69, Plate 4 

Sea-charts, 156 

Sewing, 130 

Sex, distinctions based on, 173 

Sexual satisfaction, 80 

Shells as money, 159; as planes, 127; 
as spoons, 65 

Shelter huts, 73, 152 

Shield, 160, 215 

Ships, 141, Plate 28 

Shoes, 152 

Sick-treatment, 74 

Signs and gestures, 154, IQI 

Signalling and signalling instruments, 
154 

Singing, 81, I9I, 199 

Skeletonizing of dead, 79 

Skins, treatment of, 137-138 


352 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


Skull, deformation of, 68, 261, 273, 279 

Sledges, 139-140, 152, 211, 246 

Sleeping arrangements, 73 

Sleeping-mats, 71, 73, 242, Plate 10 

Sling, 160 

Smelting, 125, 137 

Smith, rank of, 125-126, 
Plate 22; tools of, 126 

Snow-glasses, 70 

Snowshoes, 152, 214 

Snuff, use of, 251 

Social economy, 148 ff., 174 ff., 186 ff. 

Socialization of work, 187-188 

Sociology and ethnology, 28 

Somatic peculiarities, 56 

So-stones, 289 

‘ Soul,’ idea of, 29 

‘ Soul of humanity,’ 190 

Sources of ethnological material, 38-39 

Spear-thrower, 119, 160 

Speech, 153 

Spiral-roll basketry, 133 

State organization, 149, 169 

Steeping, 137 

‘ Steps-and-stairs ’’ pattern in basketry, 
131 

Stock-raising, 119 

Stone axe, 289 

Stone-cutting, 126-127, 225, 283 

Stool, evolution of, 74 

Suction pipe, 292 

Supra-organism, theory of, 52 

Surf-swimming, 286 

Survivals, Tylor’s theory of, 36 

Sword, 160 

Synthesis as ethnological method, 48 

Systematic ethnology, 51 


173, 323, 


Taboo, 275, 284 

T acca, 279 

Tallystick, 155, 158 

Tambos, 143, 264 

Taming of animals, 280 
Tapa, bark, 137, 284 

Taro, 276, 279, 281 
Tattooing, 69, 224, 283 
Technology and ethnology, 24 
Teeth, deformation of, 69 
Tembe, 161 

Tents, 72 

Terrace-culture, III 
Territorial principle, 169 
Tertiary man in America, 208 


352 


Textile manufacture, 133-136 

Throwing-club, 159 

Throwing-knife, 160 

Throwing-stick, 159 

Tillage, 108-134; essentials for, 
93; instruments used in, 
methods of, 108-109 

Time, computation of, in Mexico, 228 

Time, primitive methods of indicating, 
156 

Tobacco-pipe, 65 

Toboggan, 139, 211, 214 

Tomahawk, 215 

Tooth-brush, 67 

Tortoises, 100 

Totemism, 168, 200 

Towers of Silence, 77 

Toys, 82 

Trade, 181 

Trade economy, I61, 170 

Transformation of material, 122; by 
chemical agency, 137-138; by me- 
chanical agency, 124 ff., 137-138 

Transformism, theory of, 35, 89 


92- 
112; 


’ Transport by land, 139-140; by water, 


140-141 

Traps, 119, 291 

Trepanning, 76, 273 

Tribute, imposition and paying of, 
179, 184 

Turkeys, 218 


ULURI 70, 196 
Umiak, 141, 211 
Under-population, 147 


VALUE, measures of—see Money 
Vehicles, 140 

Vicufia, 121, 260 

Village community, 149, 169 


WAMPUM, 213 

Wants, direct satisfaction of, 54 ff., 
92 ff.; indirect satisfaction of, 56 ff. 

War, 170-172 

Water, as beverage, 62, 91; substitutes 
for,62; transport by, 140-142; ways 
of obtaining, 122 

Water-pipes, 122 

Weapons, of attack, 159; of defence, 
160 

Weaving, methods of, 133-136; pat- 
terns in, 133-136 


SUBJECT INDEX 


Weights and measures, 151, 158 Worship, objects of, 84-88, 200, 311; 
Wells, 121 places of, 86; rites of, 85 
Whirr, 85, 220, 276, 293 Wrestling, 71, 81-82 


Woman, restrictions on, 85; status of, Writing, 155 
173-174, 275, 284; share of, in work, 


44, 103, 173-174 
Wood-carving, 284 


YAMS, II3 
Youth, employment of, 49 


Wood, work in, 127-128, 131 ZIPA, secular king, 256 
Work and play, 81-82 Zones of civilization, theory of, 37 
Work necessary for man, 57 Zoology and ethnology, 24 


Z 353 


INDEX OF GEOGRAPHICAL AND 
TRIBAL NAMES 


ABESHR, capital of Wadai, 322 
Abipone, 117, 237, 240 
Abyssinia, 324, 328 ff. 

Acca, 296 

Adamawa, town, 316 
Admiralty Islands, 270, Plate 8 
Afar, 329 

African Hottentots, Aichzns, 294 
African tribes, 287-333 

Aikwe Bushmen, 292 
Aimure—see Botocudo 

Ainu, 345 

Alakaluf, 235 

Aleutians, 346 

Alfuri, 266, 273 

Algonquin tribes, 211 
Allouages, 246, 254 

Aloa, state, 326 

Altaics, 334 

Amacosa, 297 

American tribes, 206-265 
Amhara, state, 328 

Ancon, ruined site, 259 
Angaite, 239 

Angoni, 297, 299, 304 

Angoy, province, 303 
Annamese, 334 

Antananarivo, 333 

Anti, 247, 250 

Antilles, inhabitants of, 254, 255 


Anto-suyu, province of Inca Empire, 


262 
Apaches, 218 
Apalai, 247 
Apiaka, 63 
Arabs, 289, 331 
Arapaho, Plate 48 
Araucans, 237-238, Plate 53 
Arauna, 247 
Arawak, 246 
Arawak linguistic family, 245 


354 


Arecuna, 247 

Arhuaco, 256 

Arrua, 97 

Aruan, 246 

Aryans, 334 

Ashanti, 314 

Asiatic tribes, old, 345-346 
Assiniboin, 214 

Athapascans, 210, 211 

Atjeh, state, 344 

Atlantic region, North America, 211 ff. 
Auet6, 246 

Australians, 266-269, Plate 59 
Avars, 334 

Axum, state, 328 

Aymara, 258 

Aztecs; 63,°207; 222 a 


BABANGI, 303 
Bacalahari, 298 
Bacoco, 304 

Bacongo, 301 

Bacuba, 303 

Bacunda, 304 

Bagirmi, state, 316, 321 
Bahamas, inhabitants of, 254 
Baining, 265 

Bakairi, 48, 247 

Bali, 304, 315 

Bali, island, 337 
Baluba, 302 

Bambarra, 313 
Bamum, 315, Plate 78 
Baniva, 247 

Bantu, 296 ff. 

Bari, 301, 327 
Barolong, 298 
Barotose, 298 
Barotse-Mambunda, state, 298 
Bashilange, 311 
Bashkirs, 334 


INDEX OF NAMES 


Basques, 334 

Bassonga, 303 

Basuto, 298 

Batta, 110 

Batwa, 296 

Beaver Indians, 211 

Bechuan tribes, 298 

Bedouins, 327 

Bellacoola, 215 

Beni, 331 

Benin, state, 314 

ier ber, 287 if.) 335 

Bethanians, 293 

Betoya linguistic group, 245 

Bilchala Indians, 215 

Bini, 314 

Bisharin, 288, 327 

Bismarck Archipelago, inhabitants of, 
273 ff. 

Blackfeet, 214 

Bondelswaart Hottentots, 293 

Bongo, 327 

Bornu, state, 321 

Bororo, 244 

Botocudo, 63, 244 

Bugre, 244 

Bulala, 321 

Burmese, 334 

Buryats, 334 

Bushmen, 62, 290 ff. 


CACHIQUEL, 231, 232 
Cacongo, province, 303 
Caddo, 214 

Cadiuco, 238, Plate 54 
Calchaqui, 258 
Californian tribes, 207 
Callinao—see Caribs 
Calmucks, 334 
Cambodia, state, 337 
Campa—see Anti 
Canadian collectors and hunters, 211 
Canem, state, 321 
Canemba, 321 

Cano, 315 

Canuri, 321 

Caraya Indians, 65, 245 
Caribs, 245 

Caroline Islanders, 276 
Casembe Empire, 301, 302 
Cashibo, 249 

Casongo Empire, 301, 302 
Catsena, state, 315 


Cauca Valley, inhabitants of, 255 

Caucau Bushmen, 291 

Cayapo, 244 

Cayuga, 212 

Central American tribes, 221 ff. 

Chaco tribes, 65, 233 ff. 

Chaibsh Hottentots, 293 

Chamacoco, 238, Plate 54 

Chamorro, 277 

Chancay, ruined site, 259 

Chango, 258 

Charrua, 237 

Chasars, 334 

Chavantes, 243 

Cherentes, 243 

Cherokee Indians, 212 

Cheyenne, 214 

Chi tribes, 314 

Chibcha, 256, Plate 57 

Chiche, 231 

Chichen-Itza, ruins at, Plate 50 

Chikito, 246 

Chilcat, 216 

Chilonga, ruins, 289 

Chimbote, 259 

Chimu, 259 

Chincha, 262 

Chincha-suyu, province of the Inca 
Empire, 262 

Chinese, 333 

Chippewayans, 211 

Chiriqui, 233 

Chocossi, state, 313 

Choctaw Indians, 79 

Chol, 231 

Cholula, 222 

Chono, 234 

Chorote, 239 

Chukchi, 346 

Cibuni, 254 

Coconuco, 258 

Coiba, 256 

Colla-suyu, province 
Empire, 262 

Colorado, 258 

Columbian zone of civilization, inhabi- 
tants of, 255 ff. 


of the Inca 


Colya, 258 
Comanche, 210 
Conde-suya, province of the Inca 


Empire, 262 
Congo State, 302-303 
Conibo, 249 


355 


SH ESP RDM 


Copts, 325 

Cora {225 

Coreans, 333 
Crimean Tartars, 334 
Crow Indians, 214 
Cuca, 321 

Cueva, 256 


DAHOMEY, 314 
Dakota, 214 
Dakotan group, 210 
Damara, 299 
Damara, Hill-, 296 
Danakil, 329 
Darfur, 321 
Delaware, 211 
Diaguita, 258 
Dinka, 288, 327 
Djogdja, 344 
Dog-rib Indians, 211 
Dongola, 325 
Dravidians, 335, 344-345 
Dshagga, 299 
Dwala, 304 

Dyak, 343 


EASTER ISLAND, 278 

Egypt, 324 ff. 

Engano, inhabitants of, 343 
Eskimos, 65, 209-210 
Esmeraldas, 258 
Esthonians, 334 

Eurasians, 333 ff. 

Ewe, 314 


FANS, 304 

Fanti, 314 

Fecane, 297 

Fellahs, 325 ff. 

Fiji Islanders, 271, 272 
Fingu, 297 

Finns, 334 

Fransmann Hottentots, 293 
Friendly Islands, 278 
Fuegians, 234-236 
Fulah—see Fulbe 
Fulbe, 288, 315 
Fundshur, 322 

Fur, 322 

Fura, ruins, 289 


GALIBI, 247 
Galla, 288, 329 


356 


RACES OF MANKIND 


Gana, 312 

Gando, 316 

Gazelle Peninsula, inhabitants of, 
Plate 17 

Ges (Gesan tribes), 243-244 

Ghanata Empire, 312 

Gilbert Islanders, 276 

Goajiro, 247 

Godyan, 328 

Gonya State, 313 

Grebo, 314 — 

Griqua Hottentots, 293 

Guahibo, 243 

Guaicuru linguistic group, 238 

Guaicuru tribe—see Mbaya 

Guana, 234, 238 

Guanche, 331 

Guano del Chaco, 239, 247 

Guarani, 246 

Guarauno, 243 

Guarayo, 246 

Guatavita Lake, 256 

Guatemala, 231, Plate 51 

Guato, 41, 71-74, 109, 241-242, Plates 
10, 15, 55 

Guayaci, 243 

Guetaru, 233 

Gunun Hottentots, 293 


HABBE, 317 

Hadendoa, 327 

Haida, 215 

Haikauan Hottentots, 293 
Hamites, 315, 334 

Hausa, 288, 315, Plate 76 
Hawaii Islanders, 278 ff. 
Hereros, 299 

Hervey Islanders, 284 
Hopi, 218, Plate 49 
Hottentots, 293 ff. 

Hova, 287, 332 

Huaxtecs, 222 

Huichol, 221 

Huns, 334 

Hunsa, Chibcha reservation, 256 
Hupa, 217 

Huron, 212 

Hyksos, 289 


IBERIANS, 334 

Iga, excavation site, 259 
Imboina, state, 332 

Inca State, 258-205, and passim 


INDEX OF NAMES 


Indo-Atlantic Race, 333, 334 MABA, 322 
Indo-Australians, 345 Macalaka, 298 
Indo-Chinese, 334 Macololo, 298 
Indo-Germans, 334 Macu, 243 
Inyeri, 254 Macua, 299 
Ipurina, 247 Macusi, 247 
Iroquoian-Huronic linguistic group, Madagascar, 332 

210 Madi, 327 
Iroquois, 212 Magyars, 334 
Itelmi, 346 Mahdi, Empire of, 324 

Mahdist State, 322, 326-327 


Maidu, 217 

Maipure, 247 
Makirifare, 247 
Makonda, 299, Plate 3 
Makuna, Plate 9 
Malayan tribes, 335, 342-344 
Mambunda, 298 

Manao, 247 

Manchus, 334 

Mandan, 214 

Mande peoples, 312 
Mandingo, 312, 318, 319 
Mangbattu, 63, 324, 328 
Mangue, 233 


JAPANESE, 333 
Java, 237 
Jivaro, 246, 248 
See also under Y 


KAFFA, Abyssinia, 328 
Kafirs, 297-298 
Kaingang, 245 
Kaingua, 246 
Kaioweh, 214 

Kalahari Bushmen, 291 
Kamayura, 246 7’ 
Kamchadales, 346 


Kame, 245 Manyema, 303 
Karacalmucks, 334 Maoris, 279, Plates 38, 39, 69 
Karakhirgese, 334 Marayo Island, 109 
Katanga, 302 Mariana Islands, 276 
Katukina tribes, 246 Maricopa, 221 
Kaua, 153, Plate 19 Marquesas Islanders, 279 
Keres, 218 Marshall Islanders, 276 
Khechua, 258, 259 Masai, 288, 300 
Kioko (Kioque), 303 Mascoi group, 238 
Klamath, 217 Mashonas, 298 
Kobeua, 248, Plate 21 Massenga, capital, 321 
Koggaba, 256 Masumba, capital, 302 
Kokama, 246 Matabele, 298 
Kordofan, 326 Mataco, 238 
Koryak, 346 Mataco linguistic group, 238-239 
Kru, 314 Matindela, ruins, 289 
Kwakiutl, 215, Plates 44, 46 Matshiganga, 247, 250 

Maya tribes, 231-232 
LAPPS, 334 Mayoruna, 250 
Lenca, 233 Mbaya, 234, 238, 240 
Lengua, 239 Mecca, 338-340 
Lhassa, 338 Medina, 340 
Lican-antai, 258 Mediterranean race, 333, 334 
Lima, ruins near, 259 Mehinaku, 243, 247, Plate 37 
Loango, 303 Melanesians, 270-276 
Loyalty Islanders, 76 Melle, state, 313 
Lunda-Luba peoples, 301 Menabe, state, 332 
Lunda State, 301 Meroe, priestly state, 325 


ab! 


THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF MANKIND 


Mexicans, ancient, 222-231, Plates 41,42 


Michoaca, 222 

Micronesians, 276 ff. 

Miranha, 63, 250 

Mitla, ruins, 225 

Miztecs, 222 

Mochica, 259 

Mohave, 221 

Mohawk, 212 

Moki—see Hopi 

Moluche—see Araucans 
Monbuttu—see Mangbattu 
Mongolian race, 333 

Mongols, 334 

Monomotapa, state, 298 
Mosquito, 233 

Mossi, state, 314, 317 
Motilones, Caribs, 255 

Moxos, 252 

Msiri’s State, 302 

Muato Yamvo, Empire of, 301 
Muiquita, Chibcha reservation, 256 
Munda, 345 

Munduruku, 246, 249, 250, 252 
Mura, 243 

Muskhogean group, 210 
Muysca, 256 


NAHUA, 222 

Nahukua, 249 

Naman Hottentots, 293 
Nan Tauatsh, ruined buildings, 276 
Nasca, 259 

Navaho, 218 

Negritoes, 288, 324, 345 
New Caledonia, 272 

New Guinea, 270, Plate 61 
New Hebrides, 271 

New Mecklenburg, 270 
New Pomerania, 270 

New Zealanders, 279 
Ngami Bushmen, 291 
Nicobar Islanders, 343 
Nilots, 327 

North American tribes, 209-266 
Nuba, 326 

Nubia, state, 325 
Nubians, 325 

Nutka, 215 

Nyam-Nyam, 63, 324, 328 





OAJACA, state, 222 
Ojibways, 211 


358 


Ollantaytambo, ruins, 161, 264 
Omagua, 246 

Omaha, 214 

Ona, 235 

Oneida, 212 
Onondaga, 212 

Oregon tribes, 207 
Orlam Hottentots, 293 
Oromo—see Galla 
Osmans, 334 

Otomacs, 245 

Otomi, 222 

Ovaherero, 299 
Ovambadyeru, 293 
Ovambo, 299, Plate 72 


PACHACAMAG, ruins, 259 
Paez, 258 

Palz-Asiatics, 345 

Palenque, 232 

Pampas Indians, 237 

Pani, 210 

Pano, 248 

Pano linguistic group, 245 ff. 
Papuans, 265-266, 270 ff. 
Paressi Indians, 117, 249, 251 
Parsees, 77 

Patagonians, 209, 236 
Paumari, 97, 247 

Payagua, 238 

Pelew Island, 276 

Peruvians, 258-265, and passim 
Peshere, 235 

Pianocoto, 247 

Pilaga, 238 

Pima, 221 

Piro, 247, Plate 5 
Polynesians, 278 

Pomo, 217 

Ponape Island, 276 

Prairie Indians, 214 
Proto-Hamites, 288 

Pueblo Indians, 217 ff. 
Puelche, 237 

Pygmies, 296 


QUERENDI, 237 
Quimbaya, 255 


RANQUELES, 237 

Rapa Islanders, 284 

‘ Red People’ Hottentots, 293 
Rio Negro tribes, 249 ff. 
Rucuyenne, 247 


INDEX OF NAMES 


SACSAHUAMAN, 139, 161, 264 

Sahara tribes, 287 ff. 

Sakalavas, 332 

Samoans, 278 ff. 

Samory’s State, 313 

Samoyedes, 334 

Samuco group, 238 

San Salvador, 303 

Sanapana, 239 

Santa Barbara Indians, 217 

Santa Cruz Islanders, 270 

Segu, 313 

Selish tribes, 215 

Seminole, 212 

Seneca, 212 

Sennar, 321 

Senoi, 345 

Senussi, order of, 341 

Seria, 221 

Serracolet—see Soninki 

Shilluk, 288, 327 

Shipibo, 248 

Shoa, district, 328 

Shokleng, 244 

Shoshone, 214, 218 

Shuli, 327 

Siamese, 334 

Simbabye, ruins, 289 

Siouan group, 210 

Sioux, 210, Plate 30, 48 

Siriono, 118 

Society Islanders, 279 ff. 

Socoto, state, 315 

Solo, state, 344 

Solomon Islanders, 271 

Somali, 288, 329 

Songhai State, 313 

Soninki, 313 

Sonora tribes, 221 

Sonrhai State, 313 

South Africans, fair-skinned, 290 ff. 

South American tribes, 233 ff. 

South Sea Islanders, 265 ff. 

Sso, 321 

Sudan Negroes, 287 

Sudan tribes, eastern, 321 ff.; western, 
312'41; 

Sulka, 271 

Sumo, 233 

Susu, 312 

Suya, 245 

Swaheli, 300 

Swartbois, 293 


TABASCO, 231 

Tacana tribes, 246 
Tahiti, 278 

Taino, 246 

Talamanca tribes, 233, Plate 52 
Tamil, 344 

Tamoyo, 246 

Tano, 218 

Tarahumara, 221 
Tarasco, 222 

Tariana, 247 
Tasmanians, 269-270 
Teda, 329-330 
Tehuelche, 236 
Tekuna, 248 
Tenochtitlan (Mexico), 225 
Tereno, 247 

Tetzcuco, lake, 223, 225 
Tibbu, 329-330 
Tibetans, 77, 333 
Tigre, district, 328 
Timbuctoo, 313 
Tinneh, 210 

Tlacopan, 225 

Tlaxcala, 222 

Tlinkit, 215, Plate 46 
Toba, 238 

Tollan, town, 222 
Toltecs, 207 

Tonga Islanders, 278 
Tongatabu, 279 
Topnaars, 293 

Totanac, 222 

Trujillo, 259 

Trumai, 243 

Tshaima, 247 
Tshiriguano, 238, 246 
Tsoneka, 236 

Tuareg, 329-330 
Tukano, 248, Plates 1, 29 
Tumanaha 239 
Tunguse, 334 

Tupi linguistic group, 238 
Tupinamba, 246 
Tupinikin, 246 
Turco-Tartars, 334 
Turcomans, 334 

Turks, 334 

Tuscarora, 212 

Tuyuka, Plate 1 


UGANDA, 307 
Vlad, 331 


359 


THE PRIMIPIVE “RACES -0 Be NTAN COINS 


Umaua, 247 
Uralians, 334 

Urga, town, 338 
Uru, 258 

Uvea, 76 

Uxmal, 232, Plate 50 


VANDALS, 334 
Vedda, 117, 118, 345 
Ver 313 


WABENA, 299 

Wadai, state, 321, 322 
Waganda, 300, 309, Plate 28 
Wagogo, 299 

Wahehe, 299 

Wahuma, 288, 300, Plate 76 
Wakashan tribes, 215 
Wanyamwesi, 309, 310 
Wapishana, 247 

Wara, capital, 322 

Warrau, 243 

Warua, 302 

Wassangu, 299 

Watusi—see Wahuma 
Watuta, 297 

Winnebago, 214 

Wintun, 217 

Witbois, 293 

Woguls, 334 

Wolofs, 314 


360 


XINCA, 233 


Xingu Indians, 48, 49, 66, 67, 252-254 


Xochimilco, 223 
Xosa Kafirs, 297 


YACATS, 334 
Yagan, 235 
Yaks, 334 
Yamamadi, 247 
Yaualapiti, 247 
Yauaperi, 247 
Yekuana, Plate 4 
Yeniseians, 346 
Yola, capital, 316 
Yolofs, 314 
Yucatecs, 231 
Yuits, 346 
Yukaghir, 346 
Yuma, 221 
Yunca, 259 
Yurtin252 
Yuruna, 246, 253 
Yute, 218 


ZAPARO, 245 
Zapotecs, 222 
Zoghava, 321 
Zulu Kafirs, 297 


Zuni, 218, Plates, 34, 49 

















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GN315 .S35 
The primitive races of mankind : a study 


Princeton Theological Seminary—Speer Libr 


LOA MOR YN 


1 1012 00137 6153 


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